how to design a clothesline for a large family?

**mrschris** · 03-10-2006, 01:42 PM

Greetings from NE Indiana! Spring is here, and I've been using the clothesline again. But it's leaning in on itself terribly, and we're going to be finishing the back yard this year anyway...so...I'm hunting information for the best way to build a clothesline. We are a family of 7, plus daycare kids and lots of animals, plus, we don't use paper towels or paper napkins, so there are 2-3 loads of laundry a day, plus a couple of days a week where we might do 5 or 6 at least. And then there's sheets and blankets once a week, too.

Does anyone have a website you can recommend that tells the best way to build one? We'll use wood, not metal store bought ones.

We've been doing this for 20 years now, you'd think we'd have figured this out. I would just like to see what others have done and glean from them.

Thanks in advance!

**sunshine** · 03-10-2006, 11:46 PM

I use the T shape-- mine are actually old telephone poles that the electric company gave us when they replaced them.

I run galvanized wire from the ends of the T and from each side of the middle of the T-- gives me 4 lines.

I have a few old broom handles with 2 nails driven in the end-- I put the broom handle in the middle of the line to prop it up- the wire goes between the nails.

**babetteq** · 03-10-2006, 11:51 PM

I used to have one made of posts (old skinny cut down trees) and there were two put about 6 feet apart, and then about 15-20 feet away there were two more. The posts on either end were joined together by a piece of wood. This allowed us to have 5 15 feet clothes lines. 5 lines from one end to the other with a foot or so between each line so that the air could flow.

good luck.

babs

**YankeeMom** · 03-11-2006, 07:47 AM

We have the same as babetteq, T-shaped poles with 5 lines between the two Ts. I'd love to have another one of the same, but no place to put it.
Our Ts are actually made of steel pipes, about 3 inches in diameter, with hooks drilled into the tops of the Ts for the lines. I have flexible clothesline stuff for my lines. It stretches out when the clothes are on it, and goes back to normal when the clothes are off. And it's high enough that my laundry doesn't hang to the ground, around 6ft high.

**Darlene** · 03-11-2006, 09:41 AM

Read a hint somewhere that the clothesline should run as close to north and south as possible as it would give your clothes the maximum amount of sunlight tohelp dry them.