Write to the association, explain the environmental cost of tumble dryers, ask a dryer manufacturer how much electricity they use per cycle then multiply that by how many times a year you have to use it to show how this adds up over time. Multiply this by the number of other people who can’t dry outside in your area.

Recruit other residents to your cause, go to meetings where policy is decided, see if you can get any local press interest.

Persist, keep bringing it up, make sure everyone at least knows that the No Line Drying policy is controversial.

If they do eventually change the rules, you’ll not only solve your own problem but allow others to stop using their dryers too. Either way you’ll make lots of people aware that they should be reducing their use, including many people who would never otherwise have thought about it.

Good luck!

I also found that just a little air circulation really helps dry when inside. I am lucky enough to have ceiling fans. So clothes dry much faster when the ceiling fan is on.

As an American, the impression I’ve gotten from the homeowners association restrictions has to do with appearances. Hanging laundry out to dry is something “poor” people do – those who can’t afford to buy a dryer or run it. The neighborhood doesn’t want people to get the impression they are “poor” or messy. My mother always hung laundry when I was growing up, so it doesn’t seem that unusual to me…but I think for a lot of people they don’t know how to dry clothes without a clothes dryer. It will be interesting to see if attitudes change in these tough economic times.

When I lived alone I used to hang my sheets folded three times on clothes hangers in the doorways. In colder weather I had to turn them (unfold and refold them the oposite way) a couple of times, but they dried nicely in a couple of days.

Now I have three different portable racks for indoor use, where there’s room for tons more than I’ll ever will need in one laundry session; one small to hang on the radiators, one regular, and one really towering thing for long stuff like sheets and trousers. I never use them all together, though, because I prefer to spread the laundry over several of days.

In winter I hang loads with only small items and single handwashed items directly on the heaters. Not only do they dry really fast – sometimes while next load is being washed – they even help humidify the dry indoor winter air.

I also have a ceiling-mounted rack in the woodshed – and if one has high ceiling, I can’t see why one can’t install one of those in the bathroom (over the tub) or kitchen – or any room, really. Or several. On mine there is room for ten doublebed sheets folded only once lengthwise. That’s several months’ worth of sheets dried in one go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_dryer#Heat_pump_dryers

Drying clothes was a bit of a pain in our old, small, cold house – the garden/yard was north-facing so never got any sun, and inside we didn’t really have enough floor space for a clothes horse. But there was room for a ceiling-mounted drying rack on a pulley in the kitchen and I got a little portable peg rack thing for our socks & undies – more than enough space for two people.

In our new place, we get sun in the garden until about 2pm and there is some dead space in the hallway on the way up to the attic room, perfect for an upright collapsible airer – or perhaps something more permanent. I also turned the spare cupboard space around our boiler into an airing cupboard at the weekend: a super easy job with some 2by1 wooden batons – I even made the shelves removable in case we need better access to the boiler in the future. Certainly no need for the tumble dryer as well.