We've just bought a house with a laundry room in the basement, complete with some lines for hanging the washing on. Now that's all well and good, but without a dryer how do the Swiss get their clothes dry on a cold and wet winter's day? One of the windows has a screen in it which lets air in all year around so cold wet air is going to come in regardless. Does the washing hang there for days and days?

I'm just asking as the house purchase included the washing machine, but there's no dryer and I'm wondering if I'll need to buy one. The house we're in now has both washer and dryer, but on ground level, and I usually hang up my washing overnight and then give it a quick dry in the dryer as, frankly, unless it's +30 outside they never feel like they're completely dry to me without having a quick dry cycle.

sure. It takes a max. of 2 days to dry.

yup. the air is so dry here it takes no time to dry clothes.

If you don't want to get a dryer, you can get one of these. You hang the clothes up, turn this machine on and it dries everything while it's hanging. Nice for shirts as they are less crinkled (or so I am told....)

http://www.roth-kippe.ch/hosting/rot...ekt%20Bora.pdf

We've got the boiler in our laundry room, so it's perhaps a bit quicker - usually overnight.

Think you will have to suck it and see. We have no boiler in our lower ground floor washroom and no heating and things in winter do not dry for days (particularly if thick or cotton t shirt material) but in summer it is not too bad. We have had a problem though with damp (despite having a window with mosi mesh which is open most of the time) so have had to buy a de-humidifier. There is a tumble dryer but I prefer not to use it if possible - and as I am around during the day, usually put stuff up in garden out on the line.

The lack of a tumble dryer in your new place would indicate that things must dry ok, but - if like us - you have small children, waiting for days for things to dry out just isn't an option, so you may have to buy a tumbler after all.

Yeah, I've seen those around Snoopy, and I might look at them again as an alternative. Good idea.

We have our oil central heating boiler in the laundry room so that may help, too. Guess I'll just have to try it out and see how it goes once we've moved in October. At least I won't have to wait months to find out.

We have both a dryer and one of those fan-like things that Snoopy provided a link to - it sucks the moisture out of the air. There are a lot of things i don'tput in the dryer, and so the fan is really useful. I also find that the condensation dryer gets too hot and and is hard on my clothes, even at reduced temperatures. Despite the dryness of the air above ground, it is damp in basements. You may find you need a dryer eventually.

Our clothes dried fine for us 2 in our basement laundry room but after kids we got a dehumidifier + washing dryer and it can dry 4 loads overnight. I'd recommend getting one that drains into the laundry sink or it stops when it gets full of water.

We got ours from: http://www.luftentfeuchter-shop.ch and they delivered within a couple of days.

You could always just opt to hang it outside too. One of our neighbors does this all year round, winter, summer, rain or shine.

There's only the two of us so I guess it may not be too bad as I don't wash clothes every day.

Problem is our garden is very small for a Swiss one; only abour 30/40 foot long and 10 wide, it's just a strip down the side of the house. There's no back door out to it so that means either going out the front door and all the way around the house or going out via garage door to get to garden.

Will probably give it a go without getting a dryer initially and seeing how well clothes dry on their own. I can always get one later if I'm not happy with situation.

Thanks for all the advice and recommendations.