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A clothes line, also spelled clothesline, also known as a wash line, is a device for hanging clothes on for the purpose of drying or airing out the articles. It is made of any type of rope, cord, wire, or twine that has been stretched between two points (e.g. two posts), outdoors or indoors, above ground level. Washing lines are attached either from a post or a wall, and are frequently located in , or on balconies. Longer washing lines often have props holding up the mid-section so the weight of the clothing does not pull the clothesline down to the ground.
Clothing that has recently been washed is hung over the line to dry. Nowadays it is held in place with clothespin, but until the 19th century laundry was simply draped over the line (and often blew away), as is visible in artistic depictions of clotheslines from earlier periods. The clothespin was not invented until 1809.
More elaborate rotary washing lines save space and are typically retractable and square or triangular in shape, with multiple lines being used (such as the Hills Hoist from Australia). Some can be folded up when not in use. The notable con man Steve Comisar once sold a solar powered clothes dryer advertised in national magazines as a scientifically proven, space age method of drying clothes using only the power of the sun. Customers received a length of clothesline. In Scotland, many tenement buildings have a "drying green", which is a communal area predominantly used for clothes lines. A "drying green" may also be used as a recreational space for tenants. The overhead clothes airer is an indoor version hung at ceiling level and also raised and lowered with pulleys.
Several types of devices are available for indoor drying. A clotheshorse can help save space in an apartment, or clothes lines can be strung in the basement during the winter. Small loads can simply be draped over furniture or a shower curtain pole. The drying time indoors will typically be longer than outdoor drying because of the lack of direct solar radiation and of the convection assistance of the wind.
The evaporation of the moisture from the clothes will cool the indoor air and increase the humidity level, which may or may not be desirable. In cold, dry weather, moderate increases in humidity make most people feel more comfortable. In warm weather, increased humidity makes most people feel even hotter. Increased humidity can also increase growth of fungi, which can cause health problems.
An average-sized wash load will convert approximately of ambient heat into latent heat that is stored in the evaporated water, as follows. A typical 4 kg load of laundry can contain 2.2 kg of water, after being spun in a laundry machine. To determine how much heat has been converted in drying a load of laundry, weigh the clothes when they are wet and then again after the clothes have dried. The difference is the weight of the water that was evaporated from them. Multiply that weight in Kilogram by 2,257 kJ/kg, which is the heat of vaporization per kilogram, to obtain the number of kilojoules that went into evaporating the water, or multiply by 0.6250 kWh/kg to get kilowatt-hours. If the moisture later condensation inside the house, the latent heat will return to ambient heat which could increase the temperature of the air in the room slightly.Diamond, Sheldon R. (1970). Fundamental Concepts of Modern Physics. USA: AMSCO School Publications, Inc. pp. 205. "During evaporation... The surroundings thereby become the ultimate source of the energy required to change the phase of water from liquid to gas." To obtain a good approximation of the effect this would have in a particular situation, the process can be traced on a Psychrometrics.
, the states of Florida, Colorado,Chaker, Anne Marie (September 18, 2007) "The Right to Dry", The Wall Street Journal.Colorado Governor's Energy Office HOA Bill – HB 1270 Hawaii, Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin had passed laws forbidding bans on clothes lines, while Utah allows local jurisdictions to forbid such bans. At least eight states restrict homeowners' associations from forbidding the installation of solar-energy systems, and lawyers have debated whether or not those laws might apply to clothes lines. British filmmaker, Steven Lake, released a documentary in 2011 titled Drying for Freedom about the clothes-line controversy in the United States. The right-to-dry movement saw little state-level change going into the 2020s, as laundry-drying trends remained seemingly complacent despite legislative changes.
In Canada, the province of Nova Scotia's first NDP government passed An Act to Prevent Prohibitions on the Use of Clotheslines on December 10, 2010 to allow all homeowners in the province to use clotheslines, regardless of restrictive covenants. The province of Ontario lifted bans on clothes lines in 2008. Some affluent Canadian suburban municipalities such as Hampstead, Québec or Outremont, Québec prohibit clotheslines.
Image:Clothesline-varal.JPG|Clotheslines fiber made with polyurethane
File:El-Jadida,Tor.jpg|Clothesline in El Jadida
File:Retractable clothes line 1.JPG|Retractable clothes line
File:Umbella-style clothesline.jpg|A folding umbrella-style clothes line
File:2015 06 27-13 29 30-IMG 007373 (19215607825).jpg|A clothes line as part of the art project Washing Lines in the Colors of the Rainbow
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