I tried an airier trick that mums say is cheaper than a tumble dryer – the results were interesting

PLACING a sheet over the top of my airer, next to the radiator, I’m feeling quite confident that my clothes will dry in no time.

I’m testing to see whether you can save money by using an airer trick popular with mums to dry your clothes.

Social media has been flooded with videos of people placing a bedsheet over their clothes airer and tucking it over the radiator.

The method works by creating a warm pocket of air for the clothes to dry in.

It is claimed that it can save you money by providing an alternative to the tumble dryer.

I’ve been trying to avoid using my tumble dryer, which costs roughly £1.44 per cycle.

My fiancé Henry and I do around three loads of washing a week, which costs us roughly £224.64 a year just for tumble drying our clothes.

As an alternative, I’ve been placing my clothes on my trusty £12 airer from Amazon.

It can take up to a day for my clothes to dry this way so I often get impatient and end up using my dryer anyway.

But will using the viral sheet hack with my airer save me money? I put it to the test.

The test

I hung up my clothes over my airer on Tuesday evening and placed it my the radiator in my living room.

Grabbing a £14 M&S fitted sheet from my cupboard, I placed it over the top and tucked it behind the radiator.

It was pretty easy to set up, but it did take up quite a lot of space – especially in my one bedroom flat.

I also had to squeeze the sheet behind the old, Victorian cast iron radiator in my front room to make sure it wouldn’t slip off.

After a couple of hours, I checked my clothes and immediately I was hit with a wave of heat that had been trapped under the sheet.

But, to my surprise, my clothes were still wet to the touch.

It was only only around six hours after I initially set up the airer that it felt like my clothes were getting dry.

But as it was now 10pm at night, I had no choice but to go to bed and leave the heating on.

It was only the next morning at 6am, that my clothes were finally dry enough to put away.

I was both disappointed and surprised by the result.

Is the hack safe?

I was a bit concerned about leaving the sheet on my radiator overnight in case it was a potential fire risk.

Luckily, as my radiators are wall mounted and cast iron, they don’t have exposed heating elements so the risk of fire is low.

But Giuseppe Capanna, a product safety engineer at Electrical Safety First said you shouldn’t try the hack with a portable heater.

He told The Sun: “Leaving portable heaters, particularly fan heaters, halogen heaters and convection heaters, near combustible materials, such as clothes, can start devastating fires.

“Oil filled radiators and mounted wall radiators don’t have exposed heating elements and the heat from them is less intense than the others, so they are less likely to ignite any items near-by.

“However, It’s always important to follow manufacturer’s instructions and ensure heaters are placed at least one metre away from these items and not left running unattended.”

The cost

Leaving my clothes on my airer, without having my heating on, wouldn’t have cost me anything beside the initial cost of the purchase.

But having my heating on all night to help with drying is a different matter.

The average cost of running your heating per hour is 11.51p per kilowatt-hour, according to Checkatrade.

The overall cost of running your central heating will of course, depend on a number of factors, such as the type of boiler you have.

I have a 24 kW boiler, which costs approximately £2.76 an hour to run.

I left my heating on for 12 hours, which will have cost me around £33.12.

I considered this to a huge waste of money when you consider one cycle in the tumble dryer costs just £1.44.

I also don’t mind waiting a bit longer for my clothes to dry on the airer without the assistance of the radiator and the sheet.

The verdict

When it came to drying my clothes, I found this method was a huge dissapointment.

It proved to be hugely costly and pretty inefficent.

But with so many people swearing by the method, it could just be that my flat and radiators weren’t suited to it.

Either way, I’ll be sticking to using my airer as it is, and tumble drying when I need clothes to be dry quickly.

Other alternatives could be using a heated airer, as they cost 16p an hour to run.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk