We have had a drying rack in our home for as long as we have been married (8 years ... can't believe that!). When the weather is warm and you aren't in a hurry to start wearing your freshly washed clothes, hanging them up to dry is a terrific option. It saves energy; it keeps the house from getting even hotter by not using the dryer; and, of course, it saves money. It also helps prolong the life of your clothes!
I live in the South, so it is warm enough to hang clothes outside pretty much between April and October, and there are days in March and November when I can dry clothes outside, too. But what do I do during the months where the weather is a bit more questionable?
Sometimes, I'll admit, I do turn to my dryer. If I need my clothes quickly, that's really just the way to go. It also will heat up the house when it NEEDS heating up (we keep our house on the cool side during the winter and just try to bundle up a bit more).
But more often than not, I just move my drying rack inside and also make use of my indoor clothesline. I've heard many people say that line drying during the winter, even inside, isn't really possible. I'd say that in general, this isn't true!
If you are using a heater indoors, then your inside air should be rather dry. This is the perfect environment for drying your clothes. I find that my clothes are dry after hanging up indoors for 24 hours (and sometimes less!). The clothes also add a little bit of humidity to your artificially dry air, and that's a good thing!
There are two tricks to making this work, though. First, throw your clothes in the dryer for 5 minutes, just to get them started. I've found that when I don't do this, it can take my clothes up to 36 hours to dry, so that little bit of energy I use is totally worth it to me.
Second, you need to keep up with your laundry on a daily basis (at least in my house). Since I don't have the space to hang up three loads of laundry—and since drying takes a full day—I try to tackle one load every single day, so there's pretty much always something on the drying rack at my house. We only have space for one drying rack, but if you have room for more, by all means go get more, especially if you don't like the idea of doing laundry every day.
I'd also strongly suggest that you hang an indoor clothesline, preferably the type that will retract when you don't need it. We have ours inside of our closet, and we string it all the way across our bedroom to the opposite wall.
So that's how I dry clothes all year with just a tiny bit of help from my dryer! Works for me!
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