I have a fairly small yard. In the back is one of those old school metal clothesline Ts. So obviously at some point, they lined dried their clothes in the back. But right now the back yard is fully shaded with these lovely old trees. That's great for shade, but not so great for drying clothes. The birds love it back there. I don't really want my clothes to be covered in bird poop.

I do have a small space in the front that gets sun and doesn't have any branches over it. But it's fairly small. I'm also reluctant to have my skivvies hanging in the breeze in the front yard where all can see.

I've been looking at this:
http://www.clotheslineshop.com/Merc...y_Code=OCI

It's obviously pricey, but I figure I can use it indoors during the winter as well. I read somewhere that clothes drying takes up a huge amount of your monthly electricity bill, but I can't provide any links offhand.  

I dry some things outside on a small collapsable wooden rack. But if you have allergies, you do bring pollen in with the clothes. Also, the heat in your dryer helps kill dustmites.

I think clothes lines are great for saving energy- just not perfect for everything.

I love love love my clothesline.  I dry as much as I can out there, really, until it's too cold to put stuff out w/o it freezing.  And I can really see it being a huge chunk of your LG&E bill-I notice a HUGE difference when I have to use my dryer, especially with the cloth diapers.  My yard is mostly shade, including where the line is.  On a warm day, though, I could still get 2-3 loads dry (assuming I'm on top of it, and actually bring them in when they're done, etc).  esp. if there's any kind of a breeze.

The birds do like our clothesline, though they seem to really only bother it when it's the diapers out there.  Occasionally, something gets bird-bombed but it's pretty few and far between.  When it happens, I wash that item again with the diapers. 

We have neighbors in back of us, so I tend to dry the "unmentionables" on a drying rack either in the laundry room, or up close to the house.  I didn't pay too much attention until one neighbor leaned over the back fence, and asked us if we didn't have a dryer and maybe wanted to use his.  I decided to keep the goodies inside after that.

That rack looks pretty pricey and since the clothes would all be so close together, I can't see it working real well.  We have a rigged up deal out our side door on our deck.  No neighbors have commented on it yet - just another advantage to living in our mellow little town.  I LOVE this method of clothes drying - the towels and sheets feel so fab after line drying.  I dry clothes indoors in winter by hanging them on the their hangers & leaving them in basement to dry or upstairs bya window if I am in a hurry.  Good luck figuring it out.  It is another step in the green direction!

wow, that is one expensive rack! i finally got Micah to help me hang the line up that I got at home depot for $7! We have a hammock stand (that is unused, hammock has been in basement for years) so where the hammock is I hung one line (for kids clothes mostly) and then I used the hammock stand and we tied between the hammock stand and the tree, twice. So we have quite a bit of line out. Honestly, I don't really care what I hang out to dry. Well, I thought about that and I probably wouldn't hang mama cloth out, but pretty much anything else I don't care. Asher had lots of fun handing me clothes pins while I hung the clothes out today. Yay for one step closer to a greener home and a lower electric bill!

I know it's expensive. *sigh* I just don't know how in the world I could rig something up on my front porch. I was hoping somebody would point me to a similar contraption that costs less.