KarunaNews Story

The name, ‘Hot Press,’ is somewhat confusing, because a hot press isn’t very hot and doesn’t press anything. It is a warm enclosed space that sits usefully on the boundary between a clothes dryer and a regular closet — a space often referred to as a press in Ireland. Once considered essential household amenities, these closets are fitted with a hanging rail or shelves that stand above a water heater. There’s a close English and Welsh relation, the airing cupboard, but the Irish hot press is typically larger. Hot presses are normally last-mile devices for wet laundry, rather than something intended to take it all the way. You hang your clothes up on a line outside to dry, then move them into this cozy little box to finish their drying. Hot presses show that some pragmatic solutions for a world of wiser energy use may be hiding, unnoticed, behind a closet door.