The General Chat Thread (2023)

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JAS_OH1 said:
Can you even have a clothes dryer you could use for a 3 minute cycle that would sanitize clothing items? I have no idea what's available in your area, I do know you are so way off the grid. Not sure about your electrciy and such. But.
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Driers in Australia are phenomenally expensive ($600-1,000) and it would have to go into the garage which only has 1 electrical outlet. We've switched that to a dual socket and run several things off it including the fridge freezer and the deep freeze. We are careful to unplug something if we need to run other things from the garage (waterpump for example)

The other issue with that the garage isn't waterproof and floods... not ideal.
Electricity is the only on grid service we have.

I'm not certain that either of our neighbours even have driers!

I guess it is space and finances to be honest. Most of the time if I'm careful and pick the day I do the washing with care, set the cycle to run overnight, I can usually get things dry in a day in winter. Summer it's another matter. By the time you've finished hanging the last stuff up, you can start taking in the stuff you hung up first :o_o:
 
TastyReuben said:
That’s going to be a mess. Sorry about that. It’s also going to jam up all the restaurants and stores near you.

A few years ago, MrsT and I had our sites set on an historic neighborhood in Cincy, and started researching it, looking at houses (online), and seriously considering moving, then they built this right next door:

View attachment 97041
FC Cincinnati

Put the brakes on that idea immediately. Nope, don’t need the noise, congestion, and folks who can’t handle their beer puking and peeing in my shrubs!
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We already have Toyota stadium, home to FC Dallas pro soccer team. That's not a big deal. It is one day a week, for part of the year. Plus, soccer is not a huge sport here. That is 2 miles from my house, and has never been a problem... other than when Jimmy Buffet plays there, and the downtown area fills up with Parrot Heads. :laugh:

A theme park is a whole different story. Although, even though it is only 6 miles away, I can easily avoid it. Plus, Frisco already has over 400 restaurants, and I'm sure all the chain restaurants, like Chili's and Applebee's will build near the theme park, and I don't eat at those places.

CD
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Driers in Australia are phenomenally expensive ($600-1,000) and it would have to go into the garage which only has 1 electrical outlet. We've switched that to a dual socket and run several things off it including the fridge freezer and the deep freeze. We are careful to unplug something if we need to run other things from the garage (waterpump for example)

The other issue with that the garage isn't waterproof and floods... not ideal.
Electricity is the only on grid service we have.

I'm not certain that either of our neighbours even have driers!

I guess it is space and finances to be honest. Most of the time if I'm careful and pick the day I do the washing with care, set the cycle to run overnight, I can usually get things dry in a day in winter. Summer it's another matter. By the time you've finished hanging the last stuff up, you can start taking in the stuff you hung up first :o_o:
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Driers are unusual here too. Most people hang clothes out on a clothesline, and most apartments have a clothesline outside, usually on the kitchen window. New constructions don't have clotheslines, for aesthetic reasons, so people just hang their clothes on portable clotheslines on their balconies, which is equally un-aesthetical and dries the clothes slower. Go figure.

I love hanging my clothes out on clotheslines, I like the feeling of letting the sun and the air dry them. The downsides are that in the winter they can take 2-3 days to dry, and sometimes pigeons will poop on the clothes :( But I still prefer to dry clothes outside.

The image below is a common sight here in Portugal, apartments with clotheslines outside. Personally I don't mind it, but some people think it looks awful.
image.jpg
 
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LissaC said:
Driers are unusual here too. Most people hang clothes out on a clothesline, and most apartments have a clothesline outside, usually on the kitchen window. New constructions don't have clotheslines, for aesthetic reasons, so people just hang their clothes on portable clotheslines on their balconies, which is equally un-aesthetical and dries the clothes slower. Go figure.

I love hanging my clothes out on clotheslines, I like the feeling of letting the sun and the air dry them. The downsides are that in the winter they can take 2-3 days to dry, and sometimes pigeons will poop on the clothes :( But I still prefer to dry clothes outside.

The image below is a common sight here in Portuga, apartments with clotheslines outside. Personally I don't mind it, but some people think it looks awful.
View attachment 97048
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That would definitely NOT be allowed here. You can hang clothes in the backyard, if you have one, but not in or on the front of your house/apartment.

CD
 
The snow is settling on gardens etc.. but the pavements and roads are too wet. The flakes are big and it looks lovely but no fun walking in it at it is very very :cold::cold:
 
Lullabelle said:
The snow is settling on gardens etc.. but the pavements and roads are too wet. The flakes are big and it looks lovely but no fun walking in it at it is very very :cold::cold:
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Snow in most of the country here too, but not where I am at. The amount of greenhouses here ( I live in THE central greenhouse hub of NL) hightens the ground temperature significantly enough that snow is rare even if it's present almost everywhere else.
But last year with -20 even we had snow.
 
LissaC said:
Driers are unusual here too. Most people hang clothes out on a clothesline, and most apartments have a clothesline outside, usually on the kitchen window. New constructions don't have clotheslines, for aesthetic reasons, so people just hang their clothes on portable clotheslines on their balconies, which is equally un-aesthetical and dries the clothes slower. Go figure.

I love hanging my clothes out on clotheslines, I like the feeling of letting the sun and the air dry them. The downsides are that in the winter they can take 2-3 days to dry, and sometimes pigeons will poop on the clothes :( But I still prefer to dry clothes outside.

The image below is a common sight here in Portugal, apartments with clotheslines outside. Personally I don't mind it, but some people think it looks awful.
View attachment 97048
Click to expand...
Same here this is pretty normal though mainly seen in poor areas.
 
Dryers/driers: when we lived in the UK, we were able to get some loaner appliances through the air base, because Americans weren’t used to the smaller fridges in some houses, and a clothes washer is pretty much a necessity these days (no dishwashers, though!).

The dryers were another story - by and large, British houses weren’t built with those in mind, so there wasn’t a good place for them. That meant our dryer just sat out in the open in the kitchen, like a piece of furniture, and the owner of the house, courting the American service member market, when the extra step to simply knock a big hole through the kitchen wall, no insulation, no screen, for us to stick the dryer vent hose through.
 
TastyReuben said:
Dryers/driers: when we lived in the UK, we were able to get some loaner appliances through the air base, because Americans weren’t used to the smaller fridges in some houses, and a clothes washer is pretty much a necessity these days (no dishwashers, though!).

The dryers were another story - by and large, British houses weren’t built with those in mind, so there wasn’t a good place for them. That meant our dryer just sat out in the open in the kitchen, like a piece of furniture, and the owner of the house, courting the American service member market, when the extra step to simply knock a big hole through the kitchen wall, no insulation, no screen, for us to stick the dryer vent hose through.
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Yep, same here in Portugal! It's not uncommon to see people who simply open the window to let the dryer hose out, or they "carve" a hole in the kitchen window for the dryer hose to vent - just like my neighbor:
nc_ohc=LehFesMR_CoAX-UO2kk&_nc_ht=scontent.flis8-2.jpg
 
LissaC said:
Yep, same here in Portugal!
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Here, the hole is cut through the drywall and the outer wall and whatever the exterior is (siding, brick, etc.), then it’s insulated/sealed and has a screen to prevent critters from coming in.

I saw the literal hole-through-the wall in our first house (keep in mind, there was no dryer in the house at the time, so there was a hole right through to the outside, big enough to put my arm through, right up to the shoulder) and immediately stuffed it with a towel until we got the dryer delivered, then I sealed it up around the pipe with insulation. Ugly but effective.
 
TastyReuben said:
The dryers were another story - by and large, British houses weren’t built with those in mind, so there wasn’t a good place for them. That meant our dryer just sat out in the open in the kitchen, like a piece of furniture, and the owner of the house, courting the American service member market, when the extra step to simply knock a big hole through the kitchen wall, no insulation, no screen, for us to stick the dryer vent hose through
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In the UK, our dryer was a condenser dryer that condensed the vapour to water and collected it in a container you had to empty periodically. If you didn't empty it and it filled up, the dryer simply stopped.
We had ours in the bathroom which given the age of the building was a converted bedroom because the house pre-dated plumbing.

Here we simply don't have the space for one at all. The laundry is tiny, the bathroom not much bigger.

My parents are not allowed to put their stuff out to dry on their balcony. It's part of the t&c's. The same is true for most apartments here in Australia as well. You are not allowed to dry clothes on the balcony in any manner at all. The result is that my parents hang their washing over the dryer and open the glass doors to the balcony and literally put it at the doorway! It's inside so "legal" but gets the sun. One reason I'd never manage to live in flats or an apartment.
Personally I loath tumbledriers and am trying to manage without one for add long as possible.
 
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