On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 16:36:49 -0500, Jason Marshall
wrote:

I have a third-story window that goes out to a grove of oak trees where I
want to attach a clothesline from the window to the trees about 100 feet
away.

I will go to Home Depot and ask for clothes line, but, before I do, do
you have experience with something like this that you can make
recommendations?

My mother always used cotton clothesline, but only about 6 feet off the
ground, because that's as high as she could reach. At one house it
was about 50 feet long, and maybe the same at the next house.

But she also needed clothes poles, because the weight of the clothes
would make the line sag. I think it makes a catenary, but I didn't know
that word then. Her clothes poles were 2x2's about 8 feet long, with a
V cut in one end and a point cut at the other. I've seen metal clothes
poles too,.

Unless you're very tall, you'll need 100 feet times two to reach 100
feet away, because you'll have to go round trip, and then attach the
clothes from the window, pull the other piece of rope so the clothes go
away from you, attach more clothes, etc. Plus you'll need a 4"
pulley at each end, and a spring to keep some tension on the rope. If
the tree you attach too really sways, you'll need a longer spring,

I don't think clothes poles will work for you so expect a lot of sag.

When I was born we had an oak tree in the front yard which must have
been 24 feet tall by then. I would look out the window a few years
later, and it was as tall as our 2-story house with four steps up the
front porch. I"m 67 now and the tree must be about 75 or 80 years
old. It obscures from sight, almost the entire 2nd floor. and I saw
the tree about 5 years ago. At 20 feet high, it may be too thick to
sway, but at 25, the height of your open window, I'm less sure.


AFAIK, clothes line with pulleys at each end is used mostly in the part
of the city where apartment buildings are only 20 or 30 feet apart. .
Much less sag. Are you sure this will work?



I bought 100 feet of cotton clothesline about 33 years ago, and it's
still good today. But cotton might stretch too much and too fast and
be inconvenient for 100 foot length.

I wouldn't expect yours to last as long. Mine spent 99% of its time
indoors. I haven't gotten it one wet more than once or twice and only
a little wet at that, and I've actually only used it for maybe 130 hours
total, mostly to tie things to the car, the trailer, the roof of the
SUV, to tie the fence to a bush when replacing a fence post, to pull a
tree down after I cut about half-way through, things like that. These
last 3 things were in the last 2 weeks.

No matter how little it takes to tie something I never cut it, and that
came in handy when I wanted to stand 50 feet from the tree I was pulling
down.

For 5 years I kept it in my 5th floor bedroom as a fire escape, but
there was only one fire and the flames were only 1.5 inches high.