Introduction
Consider the benefits of having a retractable clothes washing line:
- Coiling it up in a box keeps it clean.
- If you have a nice vista you won’t want it permanently scared with one or more lines cutting across it.
Traditionally people hang out wet clothes after washing them so that dry air and the sun will evaporate the water and make them dry.
Some people have draped them over hedges and bushes, but that is a sure way to get them dirty again with dust from the leaves. Also, being laid flat, they are more vulnerable to bird droppings.
The traditional way, for many decades, in the UK has been to have a thin rope tied between two posts. Wooden or plastic pegs clip the wet washing to it. Special posts for this purpose have been manufactured from reinforced concrete and steel.
A rope can be tied between a hook mounted on the wall of a building and an outhouse such as a wooden shed, or hung to make a diagonal line between two walls set at right angles on the same building. Man’s ingenuity has no bounds.
Some people leave washing lines hung up all the time but they need to wipe dirt off them before hanging out their washing. Others just unhook the lines and coil them up until needed.
People are now able to avoid dirty washing lines by using a retractable clothes washing line.
What Is A Retractable Clothes Washing Line?
The line itself is plastic tubing reinforced with synthetic string. It’s just like any modern indoor or outdoor line used for hanging out washing to dry in the open air.
Retractable clothes washing lines coil automatically onto a reel with the aid of a clock spring (like a builder’s tape measure coils up). The box it coils into can be fixed onto a wall and is free to pivot left or right.
Temporary removal from the wall in winter or bad weather is possible with good ones:
For some, two keyhole slots cut in the bracket facilitate quick removal from their mounting screws:
For others, like the Minky, the bracket fixes firmly and permanently to the wall. Pulling out the pivot pin from above releases the box containing the mechanism so it can be taken away:
I have had to repair a Minky retractable clothes washing line. You can read that post here.
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