I always dry our clothes outside in the fresh air. I have two retractable clothes lines because I don’t like seeing empty lines hanging across the garden.
I have a condenser dryer and I sometimes finish clothes off in there especially towels.
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If you mean something like a Hills Hoist then, yes, it is the only way to hang out the washing. They are brilliant, The fold up to allow the garden space to be better used or they just come out of the socket in the ground so the kids can play footie or whatever.
Why would you use anything else?
It is the only way I dry my laundry.
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I love the rotary lines, my son has one, that one ,Bruce, would be far to big for my garden, it looks real good quality one,
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I have a long washing line in the garden I like the smell of washing dried outdoors .
I don’t have a tumble dryer on principle .
My grandma had an airer for wet days I am thinking of getting one .
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These still exist today ,Muddy, I’ve seen them in many a home, on my cleaning travels,with different customers in the past.
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Mine is a Hills Hoist like the one in the picture but they come with different numbers of lines, Mine is a six string one compared to that ones seven lines but I think that just means the lines are spaced further apart.
My ex wife used to forget to wind the damn thing up again after she had got the clothes off the line so in winter when I came home in the dark I would hit my head on the arms. No wonder I divorced her.
You can buy covers to go over them so you can use them as a gazebo in the summer to provide shade but the covers cost as much as a three metre square gazebo so I can’t see the advantage
Hills also make fold down lines that you can attach to the side of the house if you have limited space
My daughter is getting one to replace their rotary line because the rotary line gets in the way of their cars (they have 10 cars and 10 motorbikes between them)
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Excellent and well made, I bet that was expensive?..
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I don’t think so just $60 to a few hundred bucks:
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Only a few hundred bucks, that’s very expensive to me…
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Retractable clothes lines are much better. You have no hole in the grass, you don’t have to pack it away or cover it and your clothes get drier faster as there is only one “layer”.
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I have a free standing airer I put outside on the patio if I can be bothered & it’s a hot day in Summer, but most of the time, in Winter, I dry indoors on another airer by the hot air c/h vent, clothing I can’t tumble dry.
I used to have a rotary clothes line, but that was given to the birds for feeders, modified by my late OH.
It worked fine as a bird feeder for years, but finally gave up.
I never got around to buying or using a rotary clothes line after, the new bird feeder went where the old rotary feeder was on the lawn.
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I would love one of those - unfortunately my ceilings are not high enough.
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I love the smell of washing that’s been line dried - there’s nothing like it. On rainy days I either don’t use the washer, or if it’s been persistent rain for some days, then it goes on a clothes horse in the spare bedroom.
Our daughter lives in a small house, with no space for a clothes horse, so I bought her one of these overhead clothes airers, which we fitted over the bath for her. We had something similar years ago, and it was a godsend when the children were tiny. She says she doesn’t know how she’d manage without it. Well, she could, because she’d just use her tumble dryer all the time, but she can’t afford that without the escalating energy costs, never mind with!
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My mum had one of those when we were kids. It used to hang in the kitchen, over the cooker. One day it was filled with clothes, and also she had a pile of nappies airing off on the eye level grill which was over the cooker. Without thinking, she turned the grill on by mistake, instead of one of the gas hobs. All the nappies caught alight, and then, of course everything on the airer above. On her own in the house with four children, she instinctively pulled everything off the cooker and airer and threw them in the sink, burning both her hands badly in the process.
Fortunately we lived literally yards from a major hospital, so leaving the little ones in charge of the big sister, off she went. My father nearly had a fit when he returned home from work to see her with both hands bandaged up 
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Retractable clothes lines are for hotel bathrooms.
The socket has a cover. so no hole in the lawn.
If my clothes aren’t dry on a rotary line in a few hours there is something seriously wrong.
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Like it’s raining .
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Not so far today but I still have enough clothes for 8 more days and I only need a dry morning or arvo to get the laundry washed and dried.
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I think you are thinking of those puny little things you get in hotels. We had a similar one many years ago when we got married for use in the bathroom.
This is what I mean
Two long lines (you can also get single ones) which stretch across the garden in different directions. When not in use they just go back into the mechanism so no unsightly clothes lines. With a rotary clothes line there is always a hole or spike of some sort in your lawn.
I have knowledge of rotary clothes lines as my Mum had one for a while before we replaced it with a retractable line. Same reason you see so many tangled up ones at the rubbish dump! 
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I have a rotary clothes line and pegs i use it when the weather is suitable. Got a retractable one in the garage, I open the back door and open the garage door a bit when I can’t put it outside. When I put it in the garage it can take days to dry if it isn’t windy. But I have to take it down in the evening when hubby puts the car away so the clothes stay in the basket until the morning in the house. Can put the bed clothes on the rotary line just fold them over.
I have a tumble dryer but don’t use it much, only when my clothes get wet walking the boys.
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Aw Come on! That’s just a toy retracting line, this is a real retracting line:
Nonsense, on tiny pommie rotary lines there might be but Australia invented the rotary clothes line and they have a flat cover to plug the socket. There’s the socket that is buried in the ground see the cap? Everything is flush with the lawn, fold the line up then remove from the ground and put in the cap - no obstruction at all.
Here is mine show me where is the bit that sticks above the ground when it is pulled out?
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