Does snapping clothes before placing them in the dryer improve their drying?

Question

I've been told that I shouldn't just take clothes out of the washing machine and put them directly in the drier without first snapping them to get them to become uncrumpled. I have tried both ways and anectodally don't see any difference.

I was wondering if there's actually any sound truth behind what people keep telling me (three separate people on different occasions have told me this).

Answer 1

I figure it is unlikely that there have been any formal peer-reviewed, rigorously controlled and blinded studies on this important issue, so I went to see what the manufacturers recommend.

I randomly sampled some manufacturers (with perhaps some skew towards major manufacturers having manuals available online), and chose one manual each.

Of the five I sampled (e.g. [1], [2]), four had lots of advice, such as turning pockets inside out and being careful of zippers, but no mention of snapping.

One came close when it suggested:

To achieve a better drying result, loosen up heavy loads before loading it into the dryer

I assume that is referring to large sheets and blankets and the like.

In conclusion, any effect of snapping out the clothes is too small for the manufacturers to recommend in manuals that are otherwise filled with minutiae on improving the dryers' effectiveness.

Answer 2

This seems to be a nice example of a cargo cultical behaviour. Snapping cloth before hanging them on a drying line is a common advice, see e.g. The Fine Art of line Drying Laundry, Wiki Answers on Jerking Clothes or Clotheslines Save Energy Save Money. The assumed reason is reduced creasing (if this really works or not might be another interesting question, but it sounds possible).

I think probably the advice "snap cloth after washing it before hanging it" might have been transformed into "snap cloth after washing before drying it", and then applied in the situation where it no longer makes sense (before putting in the dryer). Note: you cannot put your cloths strung in the dryer, as you do it when hanging them. Instead, you crumble it so that it fits in, and as the dryer makes a rotating movement, it crumbles the cloth even more.

Note: I am aware this answer contains quite a lot of speculation and unreferenced statements, however in this particular case I think it really answers the question. If I will find any way to reference any part of it, I will, however I doubt any ethnographic study or anything similar was performed on a modern people behaviour regarding drying cloths, therefore it will be hard to prove the theory about the lost context of the advice.