Laundry in Germany

Many of the German washers and dryers take much longer to get the laundry done than those in the States.  It takes about 2 hours to wash a load of clothes and 2-3 hours to dry a load.  That may be one reason many people seem to lay their clothes out to dry.  When I first moved here laundry really stressed me out.  As if it's not bad enough without taking so long to get done.  I even shrunk some of our clothes because the dryer never seems to stop!  While we were living in a hotel when we first arrived, after leaving my clothes in dryer for 3 hours and they still were not dry, I took them out laid them in the sauna in our hotel room to dry.  Our old hotel room had its own indoor sauna.  It was in our bathroom, kind of cool but a little weird too. 

Another difference with the typical German washing machines and dryers is they are generally smaller than many of the ones in the States.   Many of the German dryers also have a bucket that fills up with water from the moisture in the dryer.  So when you're done drying clothes you have to dump the water. Also most clothes you buy in Germany say not to dry them.  There are pros and cons to that.  On the positive side, your clothes will generally last longer and many of the clothes are made of high quality.  On the negative side, you have to iron everything and you can't wash and dry in one day because it takes a while to air dry clothes.  I hate ironing and so after my husband purchased several shirts and pants in Germany that could not be put in the dryer and wrinkled really bad, we decided it was worth it to buy his work clothes wrinkle and ship them from the United States.  We also lucked out and have washer and dryer connections for an American style washer and dryer.  Therefore our washing machine is a little bigger than the standard German size and we have an air vent so the moisture from our clothes can exit the vent rather than collect in a bucket that has to be emptied in our dryer. It's the little things in life that make life easier.