Ergonomics is all about making things safer and easier to use and one area of the home that it can really be applied to is the laundry.  You may think that the laundry is a bit of a nothing room but you’d be surprised at how good an ergonomic laundry will be for you. Read on for what you need to know.

About Ergonomics

As a simple definition, ergonomics means designing and organising an environment so that it is comfortable and efficient to use.  In this way, you can do your work faster and with less risk of injury to yourself.  It is a particularly valuable principle to apply in the home as it means that you can complete chores and tasks better and faster without the risk of injuries such as slipping, straining muscles, repetitive strain injuries and so on.

Ergonomics in the Laundry

The principles of ergonomics can be applied to all rooms in the home, and it comes particularly in handy in the laundry.  After all, the laundry is one of the real workhorse rooms, with you loading and unloading washers and dryers, sorting clothes, folding clothes, ironing, accessing cleaning items and so on.  So how do you make your laundry more ergonomic?

It is a really good idea to base your laundry around the washing machine and the dryer as these are the two most commonly used items.  Place the washer and dryer relatively close to each other, so that you don’t have to carry the wet clothes far in order to put them in the dryer.  Also make sure that the washer and dryer are located so that you don’t have to constantly bend over to use them.  If you have a top loading washing machine, do not place the dryer directly overhead as there is too much risk that you will bump your head when you straighten up.

You will most likely be using laundry hampers quite a bit so make sure that they are placed in a logical position.  A good suggestion is to locate the hamper beside the washing machine. Ideally, it will be on wheels so that you can take the wet, clean clothes out to the clothes line easily and so that you can take out the dirty clothes without having to bend over a lot.  Another suggestion for a laundry hamper is to buy one that has separate compartments so that you can separate your clothes as you put them into the hamper – whites in one compartment, delicates in another and so forth.  This will save you time when it comes to washing as you won’t have to sort the laundry.

You’ll also want to locate the benchtops at a comfortable height for you and also give yourself plenty of floor space so that you can move around easily when performing your tasks.  An ironing board that folds down will help make easy work of your ironing and it’ll eliminate the need to carry and manually open an ironing board every time you just want to iron a shirt.