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Among the household tricks for saving time on chores, there is one simple, well-grounded method aimed at one of the most tedious: ironing.
It involves placing a sheet of aluminum foil under the ironing board cover. It’s not a pointless gimmick: it has a specific physical explanation and helps you iron faster.
What putting aluminum foil under the ironing board cover does
Putting aluminum foil under the cover helps speed up ironing and remove wrinkles with less effort. With this trick, each pass of the iron is more effective, so fewer repeats are needed to smooth out a garment. In practice, that means less time ironing and, along the way, lower energy use from the iron.
The trick relies on one property of aluminum: it is a material that reflects heat instead of absorbing it. Normally, when the iron rests on the fabric, heat reaches it only from above, and the board underneath absorbs and “takes away” some of that heat. By placing a sheet of foil under the cover, the heat that would pass through the fabric bounces back up.
The result is that the garment gets heat from both sides at once: from the iron above and from the reflected heat below. With the fabric heated on both sides, wrinkles give way more quickly.
Step by step: how to do it properly
The process is simple:
- Remove the cloth cover from the ironing board.
- Spread one or more sheets of aluminum foil over the surface of the board, covering it well, with the shinier side facing up (the side that reflects better).
- Smooth out the foil so it is free of wrinkles or folds and the surface stays even.
- Put the cloth cover back over the foil.
- Iron as usual: you’ll notice clothes smooth out in fewer passes.
Why it’s recommended
Beyond the result, the appeal is that it’s a cheap, simple trick that makes use of something almost everyone has in the kitchen. It doesn’t require buying a special board or accessories: one sheet of aluminum foil is enough. Add to that the time savings, especially useful when there’s a lot of laundry to iron, and the energy savings, since ironing faster means the iron works less.