Why socks get lost in the dryer

If the lint screen at the bottom of the door is missing or damaged, socks or other small items can find their way into the exhaust pipe.

Luckily, there are some ways to keep sock casualties to a minimum while doing laundry. If those small items slip through, it could damage the pump and need professional support. As for how socks vanish before they reach the laundry room? That one will remain a mystery for the ages. Popular Search Terms washer review dishwasher cameras tv air fryer refrigerator review mattress sony lg.

Money All Money Credit Cards. Accessibility All Accessibility. Written by Cindy Bailen. Credit: Cathy Hinz. Up next. Billions of socks have been lost since the dawn of time — but only ever one, never a pair. Our only explanation for this puzzle is that someone wants to make things as difficult for us as possible. We have the answer. British scientists have now started investigating sock loss and have discovered something incredible: we lose an average of 15 socks a year.

As well as looking at the question of where the socks go, scientists have also developed a formula to calculate the probability of individual socks disappearing — the sock loss index. See the calculation. According to this formula, factors such as positivity towards laundry play as much of a role as the quantity of fabric being washed.

The formula is:. Where do socks go? If you throw an even number of socks into the washing machine but fish an uneven number back out, then the offending sock must still be in the machine. Perhaps revenge for an overloaded drum? During the wash, socks creep into the yawning abysses of the laundry drum. The heat and the rotations separate the clothes and cause them to disappear into the wastewater hose. But not all socks go missing in the washing machine: some pine away behind radiators, get jammed between furniture or slide under the bed.

Some even fall helplessly from the clothes line and are abandoned to their fate. Combatting sock loss. Two are stronger than one, as the inventor of the sock clip might also have thought.

However, this is not a foolproof method, as the clips often also go missing — plus, who has the time to join up all of their socks? You can of course run a separate wash just for socks so that you keep total control. No more single socks. With the sockscription you receive regular deliveries of new and always matching socks posted to your door, allowing you to quickly find new partners for your orphan socks and doing away with the tedium of sorting socks after washing.

You can choose between the original sockscription with multiple deliveries of three pairs of socks, and the extreme sockscription with one pair delivery per year. Subscribe and try it for yourself. To the sockscription. However, most of the time this mental note to buy more socks disappears as fleetingly as it appears.

Faded flowers end up in the compost. Sour milk goes down the drain. And old socks? They normally end up back on our feet. Put them on or chuck them out? Following are a few stages in the life of a sock which should make this decision easier for you.

Stages in the life of a sock. Who changes their socks only every couple of days? Who owns the most socks? And who prefers to leave it to mummy to buy socks? Experience the truth. While there is now a myriad of product subscriptions available on the internet, the sockscription was the first.

How it all began. When the washer spins your clothes, sometimes smaller items like your bras or funky socks can get wedged behind the laundry drum. To check for hidden socks here, pull back on the seal between the machine and the drum and spin the drum around and around. If your lint trap is located in the front of the dryer, pull it out and check to see if any socks have migrated into the space below.

Always unplug your machines before pulling anything out of them! Socks can easily slip behind or between machines kind of like crumbs between the stove and the counter.