How come the heat causes my doors expand but my shirts to shrink?

Question

During the summer, the heat makes my doors expand, making it tough for them to fit in the doorway. Why does heat have the opposite effect on my shirt when I put it in the dryer?

Answer 1

doors expand in an "elastic" fashion -- more heat leads to greater molecular vibrations and this pushes molecules farther apart.

Clothing molecules will expand initially, too, but as it continues to be heated, water vapor is released, and small chemical reactions in the fibers begin to cause irrversible breakages in molecular bonds, some volatile components escape, and others stay broken leading to a "plastic" transformation that once it cools, and the molecular vibrations decrease in their amplitude, leaves a smaller (and fractionally lighter) piece of clothing.

Over time, this contributes to clothing wear. It is noticeable if you have the chance to compare sun-dried on a clothesline clothes with dryer dried.

Answer 2

Your doors expand because of summer humidity and not the heat. Fabric always shrinks when dried at too high a temperature

Answer 3

It's all about water. Moisture in the wood expands when it heats up. Moisture in your wet shirt escapes from between the fabric fibers as it heats up, leaving the shirt fibers kind of squished as a result.

Answer 4

different materials