Will It Wash?

“Imagine telling your grandmother that all of your friends really rave about your $30,000 laundry room? -- Joanne Davidow, real estate broker

Time was, laundry was cleaned with water and the pounding of stones and sticks.

In the 19th century, clothes were washed in tubs with water heated over open fires and soap made from a combination of lye and ashes. Garments were scrubbed on a board, wrung by hand, rinsed, and hung to dry.

Wringer washers arrived before World War I, automatic machines in 1937, dryers in 1949 (although they didn’t come into wide use until the 1970s).

Washing clothes in a stream and hanging them in trees to dry might have been enough for our ancestors, but it certainly doesn't fit our lifestyle. Surveys by builders have identified separate laundry rooms as 'must-haves' for buyers of average-size houses (2,300 to 2,400 square feet) and upscale houses (4,000 square feet and up).

Today, about 75 percent of homes in the country now have a separate laundry room, compared with less than 50 percent in 1975. Depending on where they are placed and whether they have more than one purpose, laundry rooms can be as large as 400 square feet – about the size of a starter condo unit in the city – so where to put that laundry room does not have such a clear-cut answer.

Recent surveys show that 26 percent of respondents wanted the laundry room near the bedrooms, 26 percent near the kitchen, 23 percent in the basement, and 10 percent in the garage.

A lot of areas – Florida, Texas and areas right on the coasts – don’t usually come with basements, so the other locations have to suffice.

Wherever you put the laundry room, make sure there is a place to vent the dryer properly.

Fast facts on laundry

According to the manufacturers, a load of clothes takes more than two hours from start to finish, including collecting them, transporting them, sorting them, washing them, drying them, returning them to bedrooms, and putting them away.

Considering that the typical American family does 8 to 10 loads of wash a week, having the washer and dryer close to where the clothing is dropped off and picked up takes on greater significance.

When Maytag Corp. test-marketed its Neptune washer in Bern, Iowa, a few years back, it found that the average Bern family (two adults and two children) did 11 loads a week.

Automatic dryers extract moisture from wet clothing by heating and spinning.

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