It would usually take somewhere between 2-4 hours, though it could take much longer or shorter depending on the temperature, wind, humidity, the type of fabric and how thick it is.
If your clothes are hanging outside (or indoors near an open window on a breezy day) they should be dry in a few hours, depending on their materials. Heavy blue jeans may take a full day but a lightweight t-shirt could be dry in two hours.
How long should a dryer take to dry? A typical drying cycle takes about 45 minutes, but this time can vary depending on the cycle, heat setting and size of your load. Delicate cycles take roughly 15 minutes, while heavy cycles, like bedding, can take up to three hours to fully dry.
Yes, it is possible to dry certain clothes in as little as 30 minutes.
If you are putting soaked clothes in the dryer, tossing in a towel with your load may help absorb moisture and can possibly help speed up drying times. Be mindful to remove the towel after about five minutes for smaller loads, rather than keeping it in the dryer for the entire cycle.
You should always avoid putting soaking wet clothes into a clothes dryer. Clothes that are soaking wet or dripping are heavy and this added weight in a standard dryer could damage it as it spins the load around.
For a load of laundry that was spun in a washing machine, and hung indoors in average conditions, the "easy" items will be dry in about 5 hours, and the "difficult" items will finish in about 9 hours. Also see our Air Dry All Types of Clothing article for tips on each different clothing type.
Typically, a gas or electric dryer should take about 30 to 45 minutes to dry a full load of clothes. Dense fabrics—like a quilt or a load of thick bath towels—may take up to an hour to dry.
Place a dry towel in with your wet clothes
Meanwhile, if you put a dry towel in with your wet clothes for the first 15 minutes of the drying cycle, it can speed up drying time by absorbing some of the moisture in the load. This can help save you money because you won't have to run the whole cycle.
While placing garments in the dryer or on the clothesline right after the cycle finishes is best practice, wet laundry should generally not stay in the washer for more than 8-12 hours. Mildew and mold thrive in warm, damp environments, and the washer provides an ideal setting if laundry is left too long.
Some of the most common reasons include overloading the dryer, power sources issues, clothes being too wet, a dirty dryer lint screen, clogged dryer vents, or possible part malfunctions. Let's get started by looking at these issues and their solutions.
Leaving your clothes unattended for 24 hours is enough to build up mildew and moisture spots on your clothes. Mold is a white substance that develops on a garment sometime after it has mildew.
Adding a fan to the room where clothes are drying can speed up the drying process significantly. Fans and dehumidifiers can be used to efficiently dry clothes by circulating air and removing moisture from the air.
Soaking clothes overnight, whether inside a washing machine or out, is best avoided. Follow recommended guidelines when soaking clothes and using chemicals, and always remember that prolonged soaking can and will damage your clothes.
Place the Clothes in a Room with a Heater
Place a heater in a well-ventilated room. You can use your laundry room too. Hang your clothes on a clothes rack or a clothes horse beside the heater, and keep it at a distance of approximately one or two meters between them. Keeping it too close to the heater won't help.
Wet clothes dry due to evaporation of water from the surface of clothes. During summers, the temperature is high. So, the rate of evaporation is high. Hence, wet cloths dry fastest in summer season.
Air movement will also speed up the drying process, so let clothes dry outside or near an open window. If you're in a real hurry, blast them with a hairdryer, rotating frequently and airing out pockets, sleeves and collars. Yet another easy way to dry clothes fast!
Ironing wet clothes is not preferable as it could harm both the iron and fabric. Moreover, the fabric's moisture generates steam, harming your skin and resulting in an uneven finish.
While it's best practice to place your garments in the dryer or on the clothesline right after the cycle finishes, it's perfectly okay to leave your wet clothes in the washer overnight, Martha says. "I mean, don't leave it for a long time—don't leave it for a week," she says.
On average and across all loads and cycle configurations, electric clothes dryers may use anywhere from 1800 to 5000 watts of energy. That translates to somewhere in the range of 1.8 to 5 kWh of electricity.
Assuming that you use the fastest spin speed, an average load of washing can dry in as little as 4 hours on a hot and breezy day. The same load could take 6 hours on a cooler but breezy day. The worst weather for drying clothes is a cool and still day.
The length of time it takes to air-dry clothes indoors depends on various factors, such as the type of fabric and the humidity level in the room. On average, it can take anywhere from a few hours to a full day.
In fact, clothes will dry faster on a cold and dry day than on a warm and humid day, especially if they are in direct sunlight. So here are our MetMatters top tips for making the most of the environmental, economic and health benefits of drying clothes outside.
How long can you leave wet washing for? If damp clothes or bedding have been left in the washing machine or a basket for more than 8-12 hours we recommend giving it another wash. If it's been over 12 hours it's a safe bet that they will need to be re-washed.