In an age of technology, Bozeman residents Carol and James Bildahl have taken their ancestors’ innovation, added a dash of modern technology and cooked up a contraption they say can give folks dry clothes and lower energy bills.

The Bildahls spent a year designing and perfecting their invention, which they’ve dubbed Drynhigh, a rack-and-pulley system that air-dries clothes.

Drynhigh hangs from the ceiling, so it uses no floor space, and provides dozens of feet of hanging space.

The couple has sold more than 100 of the racks, but have their eyes set high.

The idea of Drynhigh came from similar racks used in the British Isles. Carol Bildahl remembers traveling to Ireland as a child to visit her grandmother, who had a clothesdrying rack hung in the kitchen.

On a recent trip back to the island, she saw that every home still had one of the racks.

“With a teenage daughter heading off to an expensive college and the downturn of the economy, my family and I decided the time was right to design and manufacture a more modern drying rack,” she wrote on the Web site, drynhigh.com.

REDUCE POWER BILL

The five-rail, two-dimensional, rectangular rack contains 27 linear feet of hanging space. It can hold at least one load of laundry at a time.

Unlike traditional clotheslines, Drynhigh fits in any home and is not subject to the whims of Mother Nature. In drier climates like Montana, clothes dry in a few hours. In more humid regions, it may take a full day, Bildahl said.

Families that do three loads of laundry a week will save $10 a month by using Drynhigh instead of an electric dryer, the Bildahls estimate, though that is subject to local power rates.

It can even prolong the life of a T-shirt, since electric dryers can be hard on fabric.

The racks cost $68 apiece.

KEEPING IT IN MONTANA

Most of the material for the woodand-rope device is made in Bozeman, Carol Bildahl said. She’s gotten offers from people outside Montana to take over the business, she said, but she’s declined. “The neighborhood and town are really helping,” she said. With the help of local businesses, the Bildahls package and ship orders from their garage. Sometimes, her husband even helps local customers assemble the item in their own homes.

The Bildahls have sold Drynhigh all over the country. Most of the sales originate online, but the couple wants to sell the contraption to large chain stores to make it more widely known and available.

Formerly involved in construction, Bildahl works on product development and marketing. James Bildahl has continued to work in general contracting.

She firmly believes in Drynhigh’s convenience and savings and the business model is hanging on a simple suggestion for consumers: “Use energy for your life, not your laundry.”