The airer has been in the living room for two days, the towels still feel damp and your jeans smell faintly musty. Sound familiar? It is not you. Clothes simply dry badly indoors in winter. The moisture has nowhere to go when the windows stay shut, and the longer clothes hang wet, the sooner they start to smell. Here you can read why that happens, what you can do yourself and when a drying cabinet is the real solution.
Why clothes will not dry indoors in winter
Washing dries because water evaporates from the fabric and is absorbed by the air. Outside, with wind and sun, that happens by itself. Indoors it depends on how much more moisture the air in the room can take. In winter the windows are shut, the heating is on and the air is barely refreshed. After a few hours the air around the airer is saturated, and almost nothing evaporates any more.
That is why a load that dries indoors in a day in summer can easily stay damp for two to three days in winter. In a cold utility room or an unheated loft it takes even longer, because cold air holds less moisture than warm air.
Why washing smells damp after drying indoors
The musty smell of laundry dried indoors is not dirt left behind after washing. It develops while drying. As long as fabric is damp, bacteria and mould can grow, and what they produce causes that typical smell of wet dog or an old wardrobe. Thick fabrics such as towels, dressing gowns, jumpers and jeans stay wet the longest and so smell first.
Washing it again only half helps: the smell often comes back as soon as the fabric gets damp again, for example when you dry yourself with the towel. The best remedy is simple. Make sure your washing dries quickly, ideally in a few hours rather than a few days.
What does the moisture do to your home?
A full washing machine leaves a lot of water in your clothes, and when you dry them indoors all of it ends up in the air. Dry like that several times a week and you will notice it in steamed-up windows in the morning and a clammy feeling in the room. If humidity stays above 60% for long, mould on walls, window frames and behind furniture gets a real chance.
The risk is greatest in the bedroom, in a bathroom without good ventilation and in a small flat where the moisture can hardly spread. That is exactly where the airer tends to end up in winter.
Still using the airer? How to dry it faster
- Spin at the highest speed the fabric can take. The less water left in, the shorter it hangs.
- Leave space between items. Where clothes touch, they dry last and smell first.
- Choose a small room with the door shut and open the window fully for a few minutes now and then, so the moisture does not spread through the whole home.
- Put a dehumidifier next to it. It pulls moisture from the air so your washing keeps drying instead of stalling.
- Do not hang anything on the radiator. It does dry there, but all the moisture goes straight into the room and the heat no longer reaches it.
Airing the room is the advice you hear most often. In winter, though, every open window also means heat going outside. If you wash almost every day, you end up heating the street for a good part of the year.
Dehumidifier, fan or drying cabinet?
You will find plenty of tips online for getting washing dry faster. Not all of them work when the windows have to stay shut. This is how the best known options compare.
| What it does | Drawback in winter | |
|---|---|---|
| Fan | Blows air past the washing | Removes no moisture; with the windows shut the room only gets damper |
| Dehumidifier | Pulls moisture from the air in the room | Airer stays in the room, drying still takes long, tank to empty |
| Tumble dryer | Dries quickly by tumbling the washing | Not for wool, coats, sportswear and boots; more wear and shrinkage |
| Drying cabinet | Dries the washing hanging in a closed cabinet | Needs the space of a narrow wardrobe |
A drying cabinet combines the best of both. Your clothes hang as they would on an airer, but in a cabinet that deals with the moisture itself. That also means everything that should not go in a drum fits in.
The Passad 60: plug it in and your washing is dry in hours
If you often dry indoors in winter, we usually recommend the NIMO Passad 60. It uses a heat pump in a closed system. That means no hole in the outside wall, no hose out of the window and no vent duct. The moisture from your washing is collected inside the cabinet in a 2 litre tank, or runs through a hose to a drain nearby. You put it in place, plug it in and you can start drying.
According to NIMO, a full cabinet of 11 kg of dry laundry, about 16 metres of washing line, is dry in around 4 hours, and a half load in around 2 hours. The temperature inside never goes above 55 °C, so shirts, blouses and wool can go in too. One button lets you choose between iron dry and cupboard dry, and the cabinet switches itself off as soon as the washing is dry.
- No vent or duct needed: just a socket
- Dry in hours: half load about 2 hours, full cabinet about 4 hours
- Efficient: 2.31 kWh for a full cabinet, according to NIMO up to 65% less than a vented drying cabinet
- Quiet: 45 dB, quieter than a tumble dryer and also suitable for noise-sensitive cellars
- For all your winter kit: glove hooks in the door and a shoe rack at the bottom for boots, hats and trainers
- Slim: 59.5 cm wide and 193 cm tall, in white or black
What does it cost to dry in a drying cabinet?
A full cabinet uses 2.31 kWh in the Passad 60. At €0.30 per kWh that is about 70 cents per load, for 11 kg of dry laundry. In return you no longer open the window every hour while the heating warms the room back up, and you do not leave a dehumidifier running for hours next to the airer. For a family that washes almost every day in the heating season, that difference often matters more than the kilowatt hours.
Which drying cabinet suits your home?
No vent to the outside, or renting a flat where you cannot simply drill through the wall? Then choose one of the heat pump drying cabinets. The Passad 60 comes in white and black. For large families there is the Passad 120, which dries more than twice as much behind double doors. It drains the water through a hose, so you need a drain nearby.
Already have a vent in your laundry room, for example from an old tumble dryer? Then a vented drying cabinet is an affordable choice. It blows the humid air outside through the hose. Read more about the types of drying cabinet, and everything about installing one without a vent in our guide to the heat pump drying cabinet without a vent.
Drying cabinets for winter
Passad 60 with heat pump: no vent needed, just plug it in. Solano with sensor if you already have a vent.
View the Passad 60 - Heat pump drying cabinet, no vent needed. Free delivery in the Netherlands, €60 to Germany.
Clothes not drying indoors in winter is physics: with the windows shut the moisture stays inside, and the longer clothes hang wet, the sooner they smell musty. Clever hanging and a dehumidifier get you part of the way. If you wash several loads a week, a drying cabinet gives you dry, fresh clothes all winter, without an airer in the living room and without steamed-up windows. The same idea works in spring when you want to dry without pollen from outside.