How to Relieve Static Electricity in a Dryer

Static electricity in dryers is caused by friction. As your clothes tumble around inside the dryer and pieces of fabric rub against one another, electrons from one piece of clothing move to the next, causing some pieces of cloth to have positive and some negative charges. Since positive and negative charges attract, the pieces with opposite charges stick together. Because water is a good conductor, wet clothes lose charges so fast they don't build up much static electricity, but dry clothes hold charges longer and build up static electricity. Use several techniques to reduce static in dryers.

Fabric softener
Dryer sheets

Instructions

- 1
  Add fabric softener to your washing machine just before the final spin cycle. This coats everything in the washer with chemicals that have similar molecular structures, minimizing the electron exchange mechanism that causes static electricity.
- 2
  Add dryer sheets to the dryer. Like fabric softener, dryer sheets work by coating fabrics with chemicals to reduce static.
- 3
  Line-dry as many items as possible. Synthetic fabrics such as nylon and polyester are more likely to cause static electricity than cotton. Line-dry fast-drying synthetics and use the dryer for slower-drying natural fabrics.
- 4
  Avoid over-drying. Static electricity builds up when dry clothes are rubbing against each other as the dryer moves. If you remove clothes when they are still faintly damp and hang them up to finish drying, you won't have problems with static electricity, and it prevents wrinkles.

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