Once, to be on time in a meeting, I put my underwear in the microwave for it to dry. What happend is that it got very hot and I took it out, but it was still wet.
Has anyone had succes drying clothes in the microwave?
It doesn't seem likely that a microwave will dry clothes effectively. Microwaves are good at making water hot. If the water becomes hot enough, it will boil, leaving the clothing dry. So if you want to dry clothes in the microwave, plan on heating them to the boiling point.
It's quite normal for it to become very hot but still wet; some people propose work-arounds to this (examples include wrapping the clothes in towel, paper, etc. (something that absorbs)). You CAN dry clothes in a microwave, but you SHOULDN'T dry clothes in a microwave; there are many threats like fire, possible explosion, and your clothes will probably get ruined. In these situations, use a hairdryer or something.
I would NOT recommend this, but if you're that desperate, I read somewhere about using the oven...DO NOT DO THIS, I'm just going on what I remember, they said something about leaving the oven door 25% open, pre-heating it, etc.
Again, DON'T try the oven technique until you research the crap out of it.
In conclusion, however, I would recommend just putting the clothes in the dryer a little earlier. 
It should be impossible to leave the door open on any commercial microwave. They are designed to stop this from happening. If you CAN open the door whilst the microwave is operating then you need to get it serviced or chuck it out.
Drying clothes in a microwave is not a good idea. It is a horribly inefficient use of power.
^I meant keep the door open for the oven. If the microwave is working with the door open, there's something wrong It doesn't surprise me that it didn't work. I would have been shocked if it did. Just because something is hot, doesn't mean that it is dry. You can have hot and wet things.
Actually, there's a good science lesson to be learned here. Despite what most people think, heat does not dry... wind dries. Heat just helps speed up the process.
Any water - whether it's trapped in a fabric, on the surface of your skin, or even in a puddle - is made up of H₂O molecules that are always in motion. Some of these molecules get enough kinetic energy to overcome the attraction of the other H₂O molecules, and literally "leap" out of the water into the air.
What happens next is key. If there is no air flow, the molecule that just leapt out of the fabric/drop/puddle will just float around in the air above where it leapt out, and very likely just fall back in. Thus, over time, the amount of water in the fabric/drop/puddle won't really change. In other words, no drying.
If there is an air flow, the molecule that leapt out of the fabric/drop/puddle will be blown away, and won't fall back in. Thus, over time, the amount of water in the fabric/drop/puddle will decrease. In other words, drying (which, by the way, is the same as evaporation).
There are a number of factors you have to control to control the rate of drying. To increase the drying rate, you should:
- Use dryer air (air that is really humid can't really hold more water molecules, so molecules that leap out might just be forced back in, and molecules already in the air might fall in, too).
- Use lower pressure air (air under pressure makes it harder for water molecules to get into the air).
- Use faster flowing air (the more flow, the more molecules that get carried away).
- Warm up the water (the more energy the water, the more molecules will be able to leap out).
- Increase the surface area (the more area you have for molecules to jump from, the more can get out).
- Anything else that makes more water molecules jump out, and/or get carried away (for example, the angle of the surface with respect to gravity matters, etc.).
As ptolomeo found out, warming up the water isn't enough - because in a microwave it has nowhere to go. In a clothes dryer, the clothes are not just heated, they are tossed around with air constantly being pumped through. The tossing around increases the surface area (by spreading out the clothes as they tumble), and the air that is pumped through creates the air flow for the water molecules to jump into.
ptolomeo, i'm not going to say putting clothes in the microwave is a good idea (the microwave is a lot hotter than the dryer, and you could end up with melted buttons - and there are occasionally other plastic inserts in some clothing - you could screw up the material - the elastic in the underwear would make me pause before trying it - and possibly start a fire), but if you did want to dry something fast and you were crazy enough to risk using the microwave, what you want to do is take the clothes out of the microwave while they're piping hot and drape them over a fan. Even better, hang the clothes vertically, and orient the fan to blow upwards, so you get vertical air streams on both sides of the cloth. If you're really in a rush, repeat the cycle every time the clothes cool down - warm them back up again, and hang them again until they cool again, then repeat.
But, as several people have pointed out, the microwave is a risky choice. Oh my gosh do I feel better.I thought I was the only idiot to try this.I once put some socks in there but they didnt dry ,they just got smoking hot,but still just as wet.But what works well is a hair dryer
Ive successfully dried a hand towel in a commercial microwave (1900W) at work from being soaked in water to dry enough to use in about 20 minutes. Just repeatedly get the towel heated in the microwave then remove and waft about a bit (careful cos it will be VERY hot) then put back in microwave and repeat. Just leaving it in will not work for all the reasons mentioned in previous posts.
I assume the method would work will a normal 600-900W microwave but just take a little longer (2-3 minutes at 1900W was more than enough to get it steaming when removed).
I only tried it cos I needed a dry towel, there were no customers, and I was fairly certain that the cotton fabric was not going to catch fire unless I left it in for a long time (initially I was checking every 15 seconds to make sure the temp was not too high). As Indi mentioned various other items of clothing may have lots of other materials that may not be as well behaved when exposed to microwaves so be very cautious about trying this at home lol.
this remind me of mr bean movie (the one he went to LA museum for mother whistler painting) where he dry his underwear in the oven.
Oh my god, drying clothes in a microwave oven !
How could you get such an idea.
I am pretty sure you are a bachelor as any women would have common sense to forbid you to do it. I guess that you don't have a hair dryer as you would probably would have tried with that first.
