Why am I shrinking our clothes with just washing them? What am I doing wrong? One specific case in point: DH got 3 new polos from his company for work. They were quite big on him, but I figured they'd shrink a little with the first few washes. I've been washing them for a month and they're still shrinking! They're almost too small on him now. I was washing them EXACTLY according to the tag instructions (cold water wash, medium heat dry), but got paranoid when they kept shrinking, so I switched to drying them on low. I don't have room to hang dry all our clothes in my house (and we don't have the ability to dry them outside). I can hang dry his work shirts & pants if I need to, but he only has two of each and sometimes the timing gets thrown off and I need to wash them & dry them between 8 am and noon. You'd think it'd be possible right? Nope - I wash them, and put them in the dryer and after 1 hr 40 minutes they're still not dry. What is the malfunction? I get sick of DH's picking on me, but more than that, I don't want to have to buy new clothes because I am consistently shrinking the ones we have! Help!

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I was everything in cold and dry everything on low. I never have a problem. I wonder if your dryer is having a problem.

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~Happiness is a large family~

You put something in the dryer for an hour and 40 minutes and it's not dry? Did I read that right? I put our dryer on for 20 minutes and check it. Then I pull out semi-dry things to hang dry the rest of the way (what I can) and then put the rest back in for another 20 minutes. It's rare if things are not completely dry by then. I think there is something wrong w/ your dryer if things are in there over an hour and not drying. Either that or you are overloading the dryer.

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It sounds like it might be your dryer...I would probably jsut dry them for about 10 minutes and then take them out to dry completely on hangers. It might be the quality of clothing you're buying. Where did you get the shirts?

They were shirts purchased through his company for work. They look to be good quality. It did the same with nice $30+ polos I bought for him for his last job.

I'm not overloading the dryer - I had thought of that too.

I think the hose in the back of the dryer is kinked - again. They didn't build the closet deep enough for the dryer to sit properly with the hose unkinked and still have room for the closet doors to close. I'm not sure what we'll do, but I think we'll have to take the closet doors off permanently, as there is no other way to make the closet deeper or make more room for that hose. This happened before - when my FIL slightly shifted the dryer to fix the bifold closet doors two years ago. took EONS for my clothes to dry. (turned out the hose was actually snapped, which explained why it took so long for the clothes to dry).. it isn't that I even mind having the doors off - I've already told DH I would gladly make curtains for the spot instead. But there are two giant (like 9" wide) holes in the wall -- one in the wall behind the washer/dryer and one almost directly across from it on the other side of that back closet wall that opens behind my kitchen stove. Guess what the cat likes to do? Jump down from the back of the washer/dryer, go through the hole and get stuck behind the oven, screaming for someone to get her out. That is the only reason I keep doors on the laundry closet. What to do? Buy a drying rack I suppose.

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