Pennsylvania Woodworks Clothes Drying Rack Review 2020 | 100% Wood Drying Rack
The Top Line: BUY. If you have the space for a drying rack, Pennsylvania Woodworks drying rack is a buy. Even though it's a slightly pricier upfront purchase, you make your money back in savings from not running the dryer 33-50% less often. Also, given its quality and 100% wood structure, we think it outlasts any of the plastic, epoxy cheaper versions on the market. Lastly, Pennsylvania Woodworks has really small racks which may suit your needs.
[Orig Published 20-Aug-2020; Update 27-Sept-2021: We are still happily using the drying rack with almost every load of laundry! It is over a year old and looks brand new.]
Check out our Big Zero-Waste Laundry Roundup Review on The Reduce Report.
The Breakdown:
Cost & Products: Pennsylvania Woodworks has 4 different sizes: Small $79.99; Medium $99.99; Large $109.99; Extra Large $123.99 — We got the Large size which has 37 feet of drying space (the length of all the dowels).
How ‘Clean’ Is This? Clean! It’s 100% made of wood, no plastic, metal or other components.
Packaging: Came in a big box.. already assembled.
Purchasing & Shipping: We bought it on Etsy, shipping is included in the price for these big items. They are also available on Amazon and their own Pennsylvania Woodworks site.
Good to know: The seller notes that the wood is smoothed down so it won’t snag any clothing - and that has 100% been our experience! Zero splinters, fine job done.
What’s Your Impact? No electricity or natural gas when drying clothes! In essence, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, if your dryer is gas-powered. After cooling/heating, washing and drying clothes is typically the second biggest energy expense in a household.
The Experience
Context: We have always air-dried our delicates. Pulling out these pieces naturally limited the number of minutes our dryer was running at any given time. Preciously, our rack was a plastic and “metal” (probably from a budget store), which lasted maybe 2-3 years before peeling paint and plastic (snagging clothes, ugh) and just generally falling apart.
Tortured with the fact that this plastic/metal piece would now be in a landfill - we continued to use it beyond its useful years and vowed the next purchase would be more natural. If and when the time came to toss the next clothes dryer, we could throw it in a fire pit instead of the landfill.
With this new purchase, 1/3 - 1/2 of our loads are now air-dried in the southern California marine climate (i.e., still a little humid).
The Large Drying Rack size fits a typical load for the lady of the house, but may be small for the larger loads.
Generally pretty easy to pop open, even at 52” high (we are not much taller than said drying rack)
No snags - the wood is really, really smooth.
Normal clothes come out crisp - like being air-dried. We will look into softening via vinegar or other softening methods via the washer, but right now we like some of our linens crisp!
As a cheat, we have thrown items that we want softened into the dryer for 5 minutes to get that cozy feel. Our typical total dry time in the electric dryer is about 1 to 1.5 hours.
We don’t put ours outside but if you had outdoor space, this is a sturdy piece that should hold up in wind.
The Cost
There are two parts to having a clothes dryer: 1) is it the absolute cheapest drying rack on the market 2) how much you save in gas and/or electricity bills.
We will do our best to compare similar sized drying racks with ~31-37 feet of dowel drying space.
* Denotes 100% wood, including joints
Money Report: 100% wood drying racks are definitely pricier upfront.
Comparatively, Lehman’s was a touch cheaper until the $16.99 shipping was added. All-in cost, Pennsylvania (PA) Woodworks is one of the cheapest 100% wood drying racks around. Home-It is available on Amazon and is bamboo but has joints and other parts that are not wood, which is not great and we did NOT consider it for our own purchase.
What about money saved from less gas and/or electricity use? The average dryer, depending on energy source, can use from $0.40 to $1.10 per load of laundry. The higher number is all-electric dryers. Our personal experience is that we easily reduced reliance on the dryer by 1/3 to 1/2 for our home. The typical family does 365 loads of laundry per year!
Original Drying cost: From $146 to $402 per year
Cutting Dryer usage by 1/3 to 1/2 total costs: From $73/$97 to $201/$267 per year
At a minimum, moving to air-drying 1/3 of the time could save almost $50 and up to $200 per year if your dryer is electric. The drying rack pays for itself in ~6 month to 2 years. Given that our cheap plastic drying rack lasted at least 2 years before peeling, we have strong confidence that this drying rack will last many more years and will not damage any clothes in the process.
The Good:
✔ 100% wood, which is zero-waste - not even screws were used!
✔ Saves on dryer costs - both your wallet and the environment
✔ Comes in various sizes that can fit individual needs
✔ Sturdy - we think it could be really stable if left outside
The Bad:
✗ If getting the larger rack, slightly higher upfront costs, but makes itself up over time
Our Recommendation: BUY. If you have the space for a drying rack, Pennsylvania Woodworks drying rack is a buy. Even though it's a slightly pricier upfront purchase, you make your money back in savings from not running the dryer 33-50% less often. Also, given its quality and 100% wood structure, we think it outlasts any of the plastic, epoxy cheaper versions on the market.
We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!
