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Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry

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Re: Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry

#101

Post by JoshTriplett »

pmiller2 wrote: post #95
JoshTriplett wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes your choice is between a shorter commute and an HOA. Avoiding an HOA may cost you 5-10 extra minutes twice a day, 5 days a week. I completely agree with you, and at the same time, that criteria can turn an already difficult search into an impossible one.

Just to bring this into sharper focus: 10 minutes a day, twice a day, 5 times a week for 50 weeks a year amounts to 5000 minutes per year, or just a little over 83 hours. Personally, I would find that acceptable just to not have to live in a place where people tell me what signs I can place in my lawn or what color I can paint my front door, but opinions can and do vary from person to person. Oh, and BTW, the word "c…

> Just to bring this into sharper focus: 10 minutes a day, twice a day, 5 times a week for 50 weeks a year amounts to 5000 minutes per year, or just a little over 83 hours.

Or two full-time work-weeks worth of extra time, just spent commuting, every year. Definitely not worth it to me; in practice, the primary interaction I have with my HOA is the continued requirement to pay them.

(All else being equal, I'd much rather not have one, but I wanted a walkable commute more.)

> Oh, and BTW, the word "criteria" is plural. Its singular form is "criterion."

Not anymore: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/criterion#usage-1 . "The plural criteria has been used as a singular for over half a century." Much like "data" and "datum", it's no longer an observed distinction; "this data" and "this criteria" are entirely correct.

But in any case, I was talking about both HOAs and distance, so a more elaborate form would have been "that combination of criteria". One could also argue that an HOA is a whole collection of related problems in and of itself.

Re: Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry

#102

Post by JoeAltmaier »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #101
pmiller2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to bring this into sharper focus: 10 minutes a day, twice a day, 5 times a week for 50 weeks a year amounts to 5000 minutes per year, or just a little over 83 hours. Personally, I would find that acceptable just to not have to live in a place where people tell me what signs I can place in my lawn or what color I can paint my front door, but opinions can and do vary from person to person. Oh, and BTW, the word "c…

> Just to bring this into sharper focus: 10 minutes a day, twice a day, 5 times a week for 50 weeks a year amounts to 5000 minutes per year, or just a little over 83 hours. Or two full-time work-weeks worth of extra time, just spent commuting, every year. Definitely not worth it to me; in practice, the primary interaction I have with my HOA is the continued requirement to pay them. (All else being equal, I'd much rat…

Its not like the commute is useless time. I did it for years, and being alone with my thoughts (or the radio or an audiobook) was just another part of my life. Still I prefer not doing it, agreed.

Anyway, false dichotomy? Not all housing choices within range are burdened with an association?

Re: Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry

#103

Post by tikej »

majewsky wrote: post #67
tikej wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not true. If building has any reasonable ventilation (and it must have one in order to pass inspection and norms) it should has at least 3-4 air exchanges per hour. So drying inside wouldn’t make that much of a difference to cause mold by itself. It may be different if ventilation system is not functioning properly but in that case it should be fixed anyway.

Are you refering to German building codes here? Most German apartments that I know have no active ventilation system except in the bathroom and maybe the kitchen.

As far as I know, yes (although I don't live in Germany) but with disclaimer that it possibly allows old buildings to stay with the ventilation they were build with (which used to have decent ventilation via fairly poorly airtight doors and windows). It doesn't matter whether it's active (and by active you mean having ventilation hole in the room or fan?) or not – it should provide necessary exchange anyways. Maybe it's not true for the old buildings that weren't updated but in that case they are not healthy to stay in – whether with or without line drying.

Re: Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry

#104

Post by JoshTriplett »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #102
JoshTriplett wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just to bring this into sharper focus: 10 minutes a day, twice a day, 5 times a week for 50 weeks a year amounts to 5000 minutes per year, or just a little over 83 hours. Or two full-time work-weeks worth of extra time, just spent commuting, every year. Definitely not worth it to me; in practice, the primary interaction I have with my HOA is the continued requirement to pay them. (All else being equal, I'd much rat…

Its not like the commute is useless time. I did it for years, and being alone with my thoughts (or the radio or an audiobook) was just another part of my life. Still I prefer not doing it, agreed. Anyway, false dichotomy? Not all housing choices within range are burdened with an association?

> Anyway, false dichotomy? Not all housing choices within range are burdened with an association?

That depends on where you are; in some cities, the vast majority of housing developments have an HOA.

Re: Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry

#105

Post by sbierwagen »

joyj2nd wrote: post #70
Animats wrote: post #69

UV triggers the reaction. So, driers need a strong UV source. There are some small UV driers, and sterilizers. Full-sized clothes driers with a strong UV source, not yet.

A UV dryer? You must be dreaming. Besides that it would bleach the clothes (what may be beneficial to WHITE but ONLY to white clothes), I would be skeptical about aging of the fibres. UV light is a bitch. But I have heard about Japanese laundry machines using ultrasonic sound.

Obviously a UV dryer wouldn't have higher UV flux than sunlight, if for no other reason than cost.

Regarding photobleaching, survey the rest of this thread of people complaining clothes dried on the line turning white and then crumbling to dust.

Re: Chemical analysis and origin of the smell of line-dried laundry

#106

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #96
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://microbiologysociety.org/publication/past-issues/soil... Sounds like geosmin is the smell of earth, which to me is a fine smell. Perhaps you're a city dweller that's just not acclimated to natural smells?? Mind you I hate the over-perfumed smell of heavy clothes detergents, so I'm probably peculiar in my scent-life.

It's not the musty smell of the earth (or the smell of rain coming) but rather the pungent/sour smell of a wet towel left sopping too long in the corner or the way your clothes smell (hormones aside) after you go outside and come back in on a humid day. (I hate the city and my ideal getaway is at minimum a few days in the middle of a forest or on a mountainside, just to give you some perspective of environments I fin…

It's pretty hard to get smell information on the web! Thanks for your response.

Perhaps you're a super-smeller (that's not a pejorative!) and experience smells differently, too.

Now, what sort of look will my wife give me if I order a piece of wet towel from Chicago on the web?

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