Where do you hang laundry to dry if you don't want to use a clothes dryer? Last week I wrote about drying racks that sit on the floor or in the bathtub, but those aren't the only choices.
A ceiling-mounted laundry rack has two advantages: it requires no floor space (and limited wall space, just for the pulley system) and it helps clothes dry faster, since warm air rises. The Hangbird drying rack has a wood frame that a clothesline attaches to. It uses four ropes (rather than the two that some other ceiling-mounted rack do) for added stability.
The Lofti drying rack from The New Clothesline Company uses anodized aluminum tubes instead of a clothesline. Purchasers note that clothes can easily slip off those tubes (especially if the clothes aren't well centered), and that the tubes are a bit too close together for optimal drying.
The Laundry Lift from Greenway has stainless steel rods that raise and lower individually; that means they can be at different heights, which might help with airflow. It might also be easier to load items onto these rods, but some people would probably prefer the all-at-once approach of other drying racks.
The Laundry Lift has a child safety cord: "a loop system that breaks open should anything become entangled in the cord." That's pretty important for individuals with small children. And it comes with both clothes pegs and easy-hang tabs that hold clothes hangers.
Wall-mounted racks are another common design. The Ruckzuck from Artweger is an example of a design that isn't flashy but is still beloved by purchasers because it works so well. They say it's sturdy and quite compact when closed up, and it's easy to install. It can be used partially extended when the end user doesn't need all the space.
Laundry drying racks can also be designed to hang on the back of a door. The hanging drying rack from Brabantia can go over thin or thick doors—and it can also go over a balcony railing. It folds up flat, and it has soft protective material to avoid scratching the door.
The Gale laundry dryer from Metaltex has three tiers; if the end user is drying something long, the lower tiers can just be folded up so they don't interfere. There's little cause to remove the rack when it's not in use, since it will take up minimal space when the shelves aren't opened. This might also be a good solution for those of us who are shorter—we could skip using the top shelf and just use the two lower ones.
The Polder countertop drying rack won't work for long items, but could be handy for smaller items. Those wings can adjust to a few different positions to meet different needs. Purchasers note that the rack fits on top of a clothes dryer just fine. It has nonskid rubber feet and folds up flat for stashing away when not in use.
The OXO Good Grips folding sweater dryer meets a specific need: drying sweaters and any other similarly sized items that need to be dried flat to keep their shape. For storage, the legs fold in and the dryer folds in half. The legs are offset from the corners to allow the racks to fit on smaller surfaces, such as (some) dryers.
Sizing a rack like this is a challenge. Some purchasers wanted one that would fit in their bathtubs or on top of their dryers, and this one didn't. But if it did, the drying surface would likely be too small for most sweaters. (Some purchasers already felt this was too small.) There's probably no way to design a product like this that will work for all end users.
The Gentle Breeze Sweater Dryer comes with a fan system to dry a sweater faster; the eight blowers each rotate 360 degrees "to circulate air fast, but still gently." The fan takes three C batteries.
But for most people that fan system sounds like overkill. They either don't have any trouble with the drying time on a basic sweater dryer or they use other options to speed the drying, such as putting the rack next to a radiator or using a fan they already own to circulate the air near the sweater rack.
