Clothes airers: how to size one for a family wash

Airers are sold on how small they fold and bought on how much they hold, and those are different specifications.

The one that compares two airers honestly is drying line length in metres: the total length of rail available to hang things on. Some brands publish it prominently, most bury it, and a few do not state it at all.

This guide compares published specifications and Australian retailer listings. Nothing was loaded, hung or timed by us.

How many metres a load actually needs

A single household washing machine load, hung properly with gaps between items, occupies substantially more line than people expect. Sheets and towels are the outliers: one queen sheet can take two metres of line on its own, and a bath towel wants a full metre with air on both sides.

Where the published ranges sit in Australia gives a useful sense of scale. Brabantia’s Australian range runs from a 15 metre rack at $199 up to a 30 metre tower at $252, with 18, 20, 22, 23 and 25 metre models in between, all checked on 13 September 2026.

A rough translation, and it is a rough one:

• Under 15 metres. One person, or a partial load. Fine as a second airer for socks and smalls
• 15 to 20 metres. One full household load of mixed clothing if you space it properly, which nobody does
• 20 to 30 metres. A family load including some bulky items, or two loads if you are strict about spacing
• Sheets and towels. Budget separately. A towel wash is a different job from a clothes wash and most households need a second airer or an outdoor line for it

The spacing point matters more than the metres. Items touching each other do not dry. An airer at 30 metres loaded so tightly that nothing has airflow dries worse than a 15 metre one loaded properly, and that is the single most common reason washing takes three days indoors.

Tower or flat

Flat or concertina airers. The traditional A-frame. Wide footprint, low height, everything at the same level, easy to load one-handed. They take a lot of floor and they are the right answer for a laundry or a covered patio.

Tower airers. Multiple tiers stacked vertically, so the same line length sits in a much smaller footprint. Brabantia’s tower models are how a 22 or 30 metre rack fits somewhere a flat airer of the same capacity would not. The trade-off is that lower tiers get less airflow and dry slower, and loading the top tier is a reach.

Wall-mounted and ceiling racks. Best floor efficiency of all, fixed in place, and the install is a real job in a rental. Worth considering in a laundry that exists for this.

Over-bath and over-door racks. Small capacity, genuinely useful as a supplement, not a primary.

Which to buy: if floor space is the constraint, tower. If drying speed is the constraint, flat. If both, buy a smaller flat airer and a second one rather than one large tower.

The specifications worth comparing

• Drying line length in metres. The headline number. Compare this before anything else
• Maximum line width. Published on some listings and it decides whether a sheet fits across without folding. Brabantia lists lines up to 92 cm wide on the 18 metre model and up to 112 cm on the 22 metre tower
• Hanging capacity for hangers. The 25 metre model with a rod lists eight hooks for hangers plus a rod for at least ten more, to a maximum of 10 kg. This is the specification for a household that hangs shirts rather than pegging them
• Folded dimensions. What the listing leads with. It matters only if it actually gets folded away, which in a wet season it does not
• Frame material. Steel with a coating lasts; the coating failing at the joints is where rust starts
• Feet. Rubber or plastic feet, and whether they mark a timber floor
• Weight rating. Rarely published. Where it is, it is worth reading, because wet washing is heavy

What no listing tells you

• Drying time. No brand publishes it, and it depends entirely on the room
• Airflow between tiers. Not measured, not published, and it is the real difference between a tower and a flat airer
• Stability loaded. Not published. A tall tower loaded top-heavy with wet towels is a different object from an empty one
• Rust resistance over time. Coating type is sometimes named, longevity never is

Nothing here is ranked on durability or drying speed, because no published data exists to rank them on.

Drying indoors without wrecking the room

A full load of wet washing releases a large amount of water into the air, and in a closed room in a humid climate it has to go somewhere.

• Ventilate the room the airer is in. An open window beats a closed door
• Use the exhaust fan if it is a bathroom or laundry
• Do not dry washing in a bedroom with the door shut, which is how a wall behind a wardrobe goes mouldy
• A dehumidifier or a fan moves this along faster than heat does
• Spin it harder first. A higher spin speed removes more water at the machine and is free

Drying washing through an Australian wet season covers the whole problem, and if the laundry has started to smell as well, that is usually the machine rather than the washing.

Airer or dryer

Worth being honest about, because an airer is often bought to avoid a dryer.

An airer costs once and runs on nothing. A dryer costs to buy and costs every load, and what it costs to run common household appliances puts real figures against that. In a Sydney or Brisbane wet season, a household with children usually ends up with both, and the airer does the volume while the dryer does the school uniform that is needed tomorrow.

Before you buy

• Find the drying line metres before comparing anything else
• Measure the floor space where it will actually stand, open
• Decide whether sheets and towels are part of the job, and if so buy for that
• Check the maximum line width if you hang sheets unfolded
• Buy slightly more capacity than one load, because two loads happen