More Laundry

I have never written about my laundry before, and here we are two posts in three days.

It must be some thrilling stuff.

Or something.

So my electric bill arrived the other day, along with a notice that 'time of day' pricing will begin in 2010. What this essentially means is that during peak electrical usage times, it will cost more to use electricity. The peak times change from season to season though (Due to air conditioning and whatnot).

Off-peak times include from ten at night until six or seven in the morning, and usually a chunk of time mid-day during the week, etc.

So they are recommending that we get washers, dryers, & dishwashers with a delay timer on them, and set them to run after ten at night. This has been promoted for at least two years now, to get everyone ready for the time of day pricing.

Now, I don't have a dishwasher, so that's not a huge issue.

But.

Should I delay my wash, and then do my drying during the peak?

Should I do my wash right when I get home from work, then delay the dryer to after the peak?

And HOW am I to process my regular three loads of laundry, that I normally do on Friday - Saturday, ALL AFTER TEN AT NIGHT??? maybe I'm a wuss, but I'm usually in bed then.

Even in the summer when the dryer isn't an issue since I'm using the line... this would be the scenario: I wash load one after ten on Friday, and hang it out to dry. Perfect. I wash load two after ten at night on Saturday, and hang IT out to dry. Again, Perfect. I Wash load three after ten at night Sunday, get up Monday morning, go to work, and come home to musty smelling laundry that's sat in the washer all day????

I dunno. I'm cheap, and I'm environmentally conscious. So these are things that I want to make work. But without cutting a weekly load of laundry, just can't see it being very effective (and the only reason that we only have three loads a week is because we already have the high-capacity front loader. For a family of four to only have three loads weekly? I think that that is pretty darn good already!).