I’ve always hated going to the laundromat. To many crack whores and welfare addicts to deal with. Sure there are good people who do their wash in the public machine, but it seemed like every time I went there were fewer of the good and more of the bad.The thought of my underwear and bedding turning in the same machine Betty Jane the crack head had used made my skin crawl. The last time I went to do the wash, some jerk had thrown a used condom across one of the machines. I left and never went back.
When I lived in town, I had the usual washer and dryer set-up – out here no such luck. The only option is washing by hand. It’s just me, so I don’t have a lot and the larger items, blankets comforters etc, are washed in a friends machine. The smaller stuff I do by hand.
I use several methods depending on the items and how dirty they are. If it’s just common everyday sweat and dirt I use my homemade rocker-washer or the five gallon bucket with plunger and lid. These work pretty well, but the downside is you can only wash a few items at a time..
Let the clothes soak overnight, wring out and add clean water to the bucket and a few drops of Dawn dish detergent, don’t go overboard here. You only need a few drops – too much and it becomes difficult to rinse or wring out the suds. A little goes a long way.
To make rinsing easier I bought an industrial sized mop bucket with built-in mop squeezer (or whatever it’s called) that I use to press out the suds and excess water, before hanging on the line. This works well and does a better job than trying to wring by hand and is less work.
If the wash is more soiled than usual, I use an old-fashioned washboard
Unfortunately my modest solar set-up
Sure all the scrubbing, rinsing, wringing and hanging is more work than going to the laundromat, but look at the money saved, and looking around – I don’t see a crack whore insight.
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Instructables and makezine have plans for hand operated clothes washers used in developing countries. I’ve seen ones based on tumbling tanks and plunger systems. I’ve also seen reviews for hand cranked table top units.
One thing I’m trying to get from the local recycling guy is an old gas station wringer. They used them to wring out wash rags and it is a hand cranked roller like the ones on old fashioned washers.
You may want to have a look at an old fashioned washer with a gas engine. I’ve seen a few at local antique stores and they’re on the internet as well.
We hang clothes indoors when we can’t use the clothesline. We picked up a huge drying rack for $0.50 at a garage sale.
I can’t tell you the number of times that I have had to do my laundry by hand in the 50 years that I have been married. When the hubby was in the Army I couldn’t aford to go to the laundrymat si I had to wash cloths in the kitchen sink ! That was a challenge ! The gal upstairs and I would help each other wring them out. Bed sheets and uniforms were a real bear ! Then when we got back home again it was laundry in the sink again ! I thought I was over that? Well the first baby came along and it was diaper time! That was not fun ! Later on we made it on up to the east side and got a washer and that was heaven till it broke one day in the middle of doing the laundry. By this time we had 5 kids and lots of laundry ! I did that wash in the twin tubs in the basement. Lots of hand rubbing and twisting ! Maybe that is what is wrong with my hands today ! Still of all the washers I have had, even my new fancy front loader, the one that I loved the most was my wringer washer and if I could find one reasonable enough today I would buy another one ! Today if things get tough I have the bath tub and grand kids close by to do the wringing. If I had to do it outside I would buy two large galvanized wash tubs and put them on saw horses. I would soak my laundry in soapy water over night and then wash them in the morning and fill the other tub with clean water and rinse them in it ! Lehmans sells a wringer that clamps onto the edge of the tub and you can attach it between the two tubs. After washing the cloths run them through the wringer into the rinse water. Slosh them up and down several times and then run them through the wringer angain and hang them on a line. I like the metal clothslines. They stay more taught and don’t sag as much. Run it between two trees and use a gagit that you can twist to retighten when necessary. You must take a damp cloth and wipe this line down before you use it anyway I always did to get the dirt off it. A scrub board is also necessary for real dirty cloths, just don’t rub them so long and so hard that you rub a hole in the cloths !
Since I’m up and ratteling about I will say, it is great that you all are preparing for tough times. I have been through enough of them in my day that I try to always be prepared. You never know when or for what reason you will make use of your preparations. We have bought a generator and have had to use it in times of hurricanes. We started out with a small one and soon discovered that we needed one a bit bigger. We live out in the country and have to have one big enough to run the well pump at times and then we switch to the freezer for a while and then to a window unit airconditioner and fans at night. We have bought large blue 50 gal. plastic barrels and cleaned them out good and filled them with water and store them under our car port ! Do a lot of canning and dehydrating and freezing. If we lost power for any length of time I would can or dry what is in the freezer. I have bottle gas for my cook stove and have also used a grill that my husband made that we burn wood in so I can do my canning that way if I have to. We store some gasoline and in hard times we ration it as we may not be able to get any more right away. In years gone by it was snow storms we had to worry about but now it is hurricanes. There were times of unemployment that certainly were times of learning for sure. Times that taught me my children would never have to suffer like that again and they never have. We have learned to make due with what we have . A friend once said to me that she was going to put in a swimming pool at her house and she hoped it wouldn’t offend me !??? Like why would I be offended? If I wanted to have one and was willing to pay for it I could put one in too! I didn’t feel the need to have one. Instead we used hers!!!!!!!!LOL !
We have tried to prepare for anything that might come our way but there is always something that will pop up that you didn’t think of or couldn’t have prepared for anyway. You just have to take it in your stride. You will also find that there will be people that don’t share your views of being prepared and they will make all kinds of comments to you and about you but pay it no mind. They won’t be the ones to pay your bills if you can’t ! Keep your self and your loved ones safe and secure in the best way you know how and always listen to others that have had some experience with what you may be going through. Learn from everyone you can and if they make stupid remarks just smile and tell them that you would prefer to be prepared for anything ! They will some day be laughing out of the other side of their face. Not laughing but crying ! I have my family and my faith and I’m good to go ! Bless you all Granny.
I’m rather fond of the crack whore myself. M.D. maybe your standards are to high.
Boston,
In this case high standards are a good thing – Boston you should be careful as somethings don’t wash off.
Hey crack whores need love too MD lol!
Good post. See Creekmore does have a sense of humor and wit and still informative. I laughed my butt off and learned too.
I have built a couple of bicilavadoras they work well but are more than needed for a single guy. I gave them to freinds when I moved back to town to be near Dad. The most energy intensive part of a clothes dryer is the heating element, I’m working on adapting a gas type dryer to scavage heat from a [hot tub] solar water heater. Exhuast goes to low side of box type solar collecter and another duct feeds off the high side to dryer. My 1st one still runs the tumbler/controls on 110V. [has cut elect. bill by at least 50% for drying clothes] Regulating the heat is still a manual process, but an automatic mixing valve is in the works. For the drum I have a 12v motor that will do the job. but without the timer and controls [mainly high heat cut off] for mixing cool air to solar inlet in 12v I’m stalled getting it ready for off grid use. It might work better with less sun but for here [AZ] and now it gets too hot.
Why not go with a bimetal coil on the damper? It ought to be able to regulate a blend door just fine, especially if you counterweight the damper.
You don’t have to tumble dry, either. Drying rooms were once common. Wires crossed the overhead like clotheslines and a fan and heating element drove off moisture which escaped through an exhaust duct. You could probably go off grid using a Trombe wall and one of those solar powered attic ventilators.
Good idea elt2jv guess I overthought the problem. One off a choke should work. As for why, yes I have clothes line, I just like my Hawaiian shirts tumbled not hung and then ironed.
Hey Azyogi,
The solar assisted dryer you described is a concept that has been rattling around in my brain for the past year. Could you tell me more about this. Do you have photos or diagrams you would be willing to share? Thx!!!
I just saw on Campingsuvival.com a handcrank washer on sale for $39.95. It’s in the Bath-Hygiene category. Looks neat. Also survival knives on sale too.
Lehmans has laundry stuff- rocker tubs, wringers, etc. They’re a bit pricey for my wallet, though. Grandma hung the laundry in the attic in the winter. I don’t have enough attic. Perhaps the garage will do with the propane heater the guys use to repair cars in winter.
Midge,
My mom used to hang cloths all over the house in the winter. Daddy put lines in the kitchen and in the dinning room because that is where all the stoves were. I can still remember walking through those cloths and giving them a bat with my arm. I also remember sitting on the back porch in the summer watching mom hang cloths on the line and I was trying to shoot her with my bean shooter ! The next week we had bean plants coming up all over the back yard ! I was a stinker of a little girl !
30 gallon plastic garbage cans are great washers for blankets and quilts. During the winter a drying line indoors near a heater vent or close to the fireplace works just well.
Coincidendally, M.D. I put a DIY washing machine post on my blog this morning and when I came by your post I thought it appropriate to tell you about it the content, at least, but here is the link that I shared with my readers… It is a DIY washing machine (of sorts) that I was going to make for my camping trips, etc…
– http://goo.gl/KWID
This, apparently was in Make Magazine some time ago.
One great off-grid blog that was taken down because of trolls (what IS it with those people?) suggested using industrial mop buckets (the kind with an attached press wringer for a mop), and a new plunger (to agitate the clothes). She pointed out that one big problem with regular laundry wringers was that they tended to break buttons as the clothes were rolled through. The press wringers are easier on clothes.
The buckets are usually on rollers, so they are easy to maneuver even when full, and they are fairly cheap (local box store sells them new for $65 each; you’d need 2–1 wash, 1 rinse). I’ve included a pair of them in my preps. (Sorry, I looove my front-loader and I don’t want to give it up until I have to…)
As for clotheslines: I hung mine on a pulley system. One end is attached to a post in the yard (which happens to be part of my grape arbor, but that’s neither here nor there), the line runs across the yard and then the length of the back porch, and is attached to the far porch support. That way I can put the clothes on the line while standing on the back porch and use the pulley to move them out into the sun. And if it starts raining, I pulley them back under the porch roof, so they don’t get soaked, but I don’t have to take them down and have a basket of wet clothes in the house.
Catherine,
Very good suggestions ! I love them. I have a remedy for the broken buttons. In the old days we use to fold the cloths before putting them through the wringer. We would fold them so the buttons were on the inside of the whole thing and that seemd to remedy the problem. I learned it from my mom who learned it from her mom who learned it from her mom etc. !! Also if you fold the T-shirts first they don’t get pulled all out of shape, regular shirts were folded and put through collar first. Sometimes there was a problem with getting jeans through from the waist band side so those we would run through by putting the leg bottoms together and going pant leg first. Some wringers had an adjustment on them so you could adjust for heaver clothing ! When using a wringer washer though please always be careful of leaning over the wringer ! I worked with a gal that got her breast caught in it. The wringer caught her blouse and before she knew what was happening she was in the wringer ! The wringers have a safty button on the top for just such a thing as this. If you get caught you smak the button and the whole thing releases !
one of our weekend experiments was a weekend family out door laundry fest. (neighbors think we’re crazy anyway so who cares) I used three large “feed” tubs I bought on sale from a local ag business. I set up stations for the fam. We had an inspect & pre-treat, a wash & wring, and 2 rinse and wring stations lined up in the back yard leading up to the clothes line. I set the tubs up on a picnic table and a kids table so no bending. the first station we did together (so my boys could see just how dirty their clothes really get!) then I washed, my daughter and youngest son did the 1st rinse, husband and other son final rinse then pinned on the line.
it was a bit labor intensive but a huge learning experience for all of us. I’m happy to report that we did a whole week’s laundry for a family of five over the course of 2 days. about 3 hours saturday then 2 on sunday – due to line restrictions. we had a great time and celebrated our accomplishment with hot dogs & s’mores around the fire pit while the clothes dried.
I’m all for prepping. But I think the practical experiments like this one is really where the rubber meets road. I highly recommend all prepper families take a weekend and try it out! (plus, it’s a good way to get your kids talking!)
I don’t need to experiment. Plenty of experience at this when I was a kid, and not the whole family, just Mom and me. Get a wringer or two. Makes a BIG difference.
Ready4anything,
It is wonderful that you made a family project out of learning to do the laundry. Great idea. My grandmother and my mother and I when I was younger always had a large tub filled with soapy water that we presoaked the cloths in at least over night. When we filled the wash machine we filled it with all hot water and soap and bleach. It was so hot we had to have an old broom stick to reach in and pull out the cloths. The first things washed were the sheets and then came the socks and underware then came any other white cloths and towels and wash cloths, by this time the water was cooled down and the bleach had pretty much evaporated and been diluted with dirt so then came the colored cloths and the jeans and dirty work cloths last. Boy I haven’t thought about those things for a long time ! Good luck with your trials and keep up the good work !
We had to hand wash our clothes in Iraq during the invasion in 2003. 4 months without a shower in 100 degree plus weather with a dusty, sandy environment with a periodic splash of sandstorms and oil fires= dirty clothes. You learn a thing or two about handwashing clothes. For some reason, nobody brought along laundry detergent, so we had to improvise.
Take a bar of soap, usually Dial as issued in Boot Camp, and take out your handy dandy pocket knife. Scrape about 1/4 of a bar per ammo can (we used a 7.62 NATO ammo can from out 240G). Use the dull, back side of the blade to avoid chipping off large pieces of soap. Be sure to thoroughly rinse the can before use. Fill with water from Water Buffalo or five gallon can, whichever is closer. DO NOT use precious bottled water, or you will have to drink water from the Water Buffalo, which tastes like chlorinated pond scum.
Divide skivvy shirts, socks, PT Shorts and other intimates and wash them separately, washing the dirtiest items last. Do not try to wash multiple large, such as your Blouse and Trousers items at once. Soak items in soapy water until soap dissolves. Smoke a Pines or Sumar cigarette if American brands are unavailable. Use clean soapy water and your cleanest article of clothing to give yourself a sponge bath so you can save your baby wipes for crapping.
Agitate by hand for several minutes, taking care not to splash water out onto the sand. Replenish water as needed. Return fire as necessary. Allow soapy items to dry while you wash other items. Do NOT waste soapy water, as you will spend considerable time scraping more soap into your ammo can, allowing soap to dissolve, etc.
When all washing is done, take nearly dry, soaped items and rinse them by soaking and agitation. Water in rinse should be replaced often. Ring out items by hand, and beat them against the hood of your Humvee or similar object. Allow to dry by draping on the rear view mirrors and bumper of the Humvee. Enjoy a beverage powder from an MRE. Try not spill it on your clean Skivvy shirt.
Matt,
Good job ! LOL !
I’ve seen on British television shows that they have a clothes drying rack that fits over your bathtub. I like to use the clothes line I’ve run in the utility room near the furnace during the winter, but for your trailer, you might try a south facing window or two. Of course, socks don’t make the prettiest curtains…..
I do my own hand washin’. I use a plunger in a bucket, drop the soapy wet clothes in the bathroom tub as they are washed and add soap and water to the bucket as needed. I then fill the tub with cool water, saves money and all and use the plunger to flush rinse. I wring them by hand before putting them into the tub to be rinsed because it helps save my wash water but I am planning to get one of those fancy roller-styles soon to save the hands and really wring out the wash and rinse water even better. I hang the wrung items near the heater on one or both of the lines in the living room part of the 5th wheel near a window and I rotate and adjust as needed during drying. It rains too much where I live to hang them outside and is why I dry by the heater. I usually wash two times a week. One day is for the bath stuff, unders and shirts and the other day is for jeans and other items. As for heavy bedding, I wash and rinse the items in the bathroom tub and then hang it on a line in the tub area. Takes a little more water than other things but on a private well and do not have to worry about saving water at this time. I have been thinking about getting some carpenter cloth wire, some metal window screen and some wood and building a grate of sorts covered with the screen and then the cloth under it and try setting it in the rain for shirts and other things that do not need plunging and mixing up some water with liquid laundry soap in it and pouring it over the clothes and see how well the rain rinses the soap through and then how well it will rinse them clean. If I built a covered area I could keep them on the grate until they have dripped dry and then just hang them near my heat source. I think I would turn them inside out so the usual stuff that is left on the clothes would be rinsed off. I may even lay a second grate over the clothes and use some good clamps to keep the grates together and the clothes in position so I can turn the clothes over and let the rain rinse the other side of them. Don’t know how well this will work but thinking about it all the same. I might even burn some small holes in a covered plastic gutter and then pour the liquidy soap into it and let it pour over the clothes evenly and then transfer the clothes into the rain after it has saturated them pretty well. I like to save the rinse water for the next washing. I add a little bleach or vinegar to keep it fresh and bug and slime-free which usually does not occur but does on occasion. There’s nothing like fresh rain scent in the clothes.
I myself installed clotheslines up at the home and my daughters place……..it saves on the power bill and plus its another step in saving money to use on other preps……
I dry my clothes in the house in the winter as well! Put the dryer racks in the bathtub at night (no problems there if the clothes are not rung out well and still dripping). Except for jeans, most everything is dry by morning.
Easiest way to wash a few clothes is to wear them, and scrub with a bar of soap. Seriously. Just rub the soap around like you are taking a shower. It works great.
D55 (a bunch of Dutch socialists) have some neat ideas if you can get past the nutty artsy euroweenie trash. They put clothes in a plastic drum hooked to some tube frame and towed it behind a bicycle to agitate. Neat.
They’ve got some rather unique ideas, mostly cheesy, but some food for thought.
I have had a washboard as part of my gear for almost 30 years. Your post has prompted me, after all this time, to take it out and practice with it. I have a large, wide galvanized bucket that is typically used with the washboard and that worked well with the load of laundry I did. But one item I will definitely invest in is a mechanical wringer. I’m sure that it will get more water out the clothes than my manual wringing. Also, I’m quite sure it will take a lot less time for the clothes to dry if I were to use the wringer. Amazon has some very nice wringers that aren’t expensive.
Check Lehmans catalog or on line for hand cranked wringers and products to use without electricity. They supply a lot of Amish. I love their catalog!
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