Hot press

The hot press is a curious staple of Ireland (and elsewhere in Europe, I imagine), but it is unheard of in the U.S.  The basic idea behind the hot press is to use the heat created by the hot water heater to provide a spot for drying clothes to reduce the need for a clothes dryer.  Let’s face it – the clothes dryer takes a bunch of electricity to do a job that can occur naturally.  Is it not mere coincidence that no clothes dryer is rated as Energy Star (or whatever the energy efficient designation for electrical appliances is called).  In good weather, a clothesline will suffice.  However, in Ireland, a clothesline is not always so useful in the rain (i.e. liquid Irish sunshine).  So, the hot press contains a lot of slats on which one can hang clothes to dry.  It seems perfectly sensible and a better use of what, in the U.S., is wasted space.  In our former home in Kentucky, the hot water heater and furnace were in the cellar (dirt covered), where I tried to avoid going – my wife was even more successful in her avoidance of the cellar.  Anyway, this is a long-winded to post to say that I like the concept of the hot press.  It seems to be common in old homes as well as new.  This house is 200+ years old and has a hot press.  My in-laws house, built in the 1920s or 1930s, has one as well.  A friend of my wife’s, we’ll call her LG for short, has one in her house that she just completely renovated down to the studs.

By the way, we also have a dryer in our house, which is quite rare for Ireland.  In two weeks, we have used it once – to dry FABJs pajamas because they weren’t quite dry at bedtime.  Somehow, we forgot to pack more than one set of long-sleeve pajamas.  The rest of them are “on the boat” as we describe everything that we shipped (as opposed to bringing with us on the plane).