What is a Ceiling Clothes Airer?

Posted: Jul 07, 2011 |

Ceiling clothes airers are a type of dryer for clothes and wet washing. They utilise the natural warm air trapped in your ceilings at home, which makes them incredibly effective, ecological and economical all at the same time.

There are a range of different ceiling clothes airers, which take their design and purpose from the traditional Victorian ones used in pre industrial Britain. However their popularity today is a testament to their enduring effectiveness and quirky time-honoured charm.

So how do they work? Well roughly speaking you have a number of long wooden slats or lathes; depending on what type of airer you choose, this could be 4 slats, 6 slats or more. These are placed parallel next to each other and each end is positioned into a cast iron bracket of each end – holding them firmly in position.

The difference in the type of ceiling clothes airers comes in the different shapes and designs of cast iron brackets. For example, you have Victorian brackets which are more rounded allowing for a greater distance between each slat. This is quite different to traditional airer ends which are a bit straighter than Victorian ones, but never the less, they're just as useful and effective.

There are also classic airer ends, which are even more rounded than the Victorian ones; and for a completely straight ceiling clothes airer, you could look for straight cast iron brackets. These are quite unique and allow for extra storage space as they are completely flat – this means you can hang folded items, almost like in an airing cupboard. As such, this makes them ideal for people who need a little extra storage, but just don't have the space. 

What makes all of these ceiling dryers completely distinctive is the way they use traditional drying techniques of those in pre-industrial Britain. What's more striking is the way these methods are still applicable today – especially for those who want to save money and help the environment at the same time.

So how do they work? Each airer is hoisted upwards to the ceiling of a room. Now this can be any room that has natural heat, or alternatively you could use a kitchen with a hot stove or oven, or a room with a wood burner / fire place / central heating. It doesn't matter as the natural heat is collected and trapped in the ceiling of the room, but extra heat makes for effective drying.

Pulleys and ceiling fixings are attached to the ceiling, whilst rope is attached to each end of the cast iron airer end. The rope is then fed through the pulleys and hoisted into the air by the user pulling the rope – ingenuous yet so simple. This makes them incredibly easy to assemble and construct, and not only that the price is a snip of what you would pay in electricity bills if you were to use a tumble dryer.  

Not only are tumble dryers expensive, they also cost a lot of money using them. To make matters worse they are incredibly unfriendly to the environment, using 0.15 tonnes of carbon a year. So ceiling clothes airers are a great option for anyone looking to save money, help the environment and add a bit of style to their home.

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