living without a washing machine

[Fizzy Izzy]

If you want to dry it in a hurry, put it between two towels and stand on it while you dry off.

Good idea - thanks!

[possum]

I have hand washed for months when I had to.
I find the only way to go about it is to wash as soon as you have a bucket full, anything more than that takes forever.
Also soak anything like underwear overnight.

You could get an old fashioned mangle.

Also when I moved into one house there was still the original gas powered washing machine, it would have run off mains gas, but I would guess it wouldn't be too difficult to change the jets and run off bottle gas

[Thomzo]

Good point Possum. Houseboats and caravans often have gas powered appliances. I bet you could get a new gas powered machine.

What you need is a drum that rotates. Either one of those drums that they use for tombolas or one of the composters that you can rotate. Then tie the barrel to a large tree. As the wind blows the tree will cause the barrel to move agitating the washing inside. Paint the whole thing black and leave it in a sunny area and it will heat up the water as well.

Zoe

[catalyst]

we are in remote portugal, and lived without a washing machine for several years - but considering that we have our own abundant well water, and 80% of portugals electric is renewably generated, and we picked up a state of the art whirpool low energy low water washing machine for less than 150 euros, is there any point to not having one... that time is better spent in the garden :)
in fact we even have a dishwasher - ever tried sterilising bottles for 300 liters of wine, or 200 jars for chutney etc?

i'm all in favour of getting back to nature and living naturally - but theres no point making work for yourself... especially in this heat!

[mrsflibble]

i can't find a link to one, but I'm sure theres a place which does a hand crank washer. it looks like a beer brewqing pod thingummy on a stand with a screw on lid...
ok found a link, but only an american one. Bettaware in the uk does a similar one too. i think lakeland might also but I'm not sure.
kind of looks like a butter churner!!
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... n%26sa%3DN

[Urban Ayisha]

do people think that maybe other than undies, bed sheets, towels and gardening clothes we could all do with washing our clothes a hella lot less than we are led to believe we should? theres so many moneymakers who 'win' in leading us to believe our clothes need to be washed so often... I think this is especially true here in blighty when for a large portion of the year it is cold enough not to sweat in your clothes. also constant washing clothes surely impairs their quality, meaning it might need to be replaced a lot earlier than perhaps needed? just a thought.

[QuakerBear]

I've lived without a machine in this country for a couple of months and here's what I've learnt.

1. a large clothes horse is an essential, otherwise it's just too difficult drying the stuff.

2. you will quickly realise there's allot of clothes you just don't need, you'll find your wardrobe becoming more restricted, not unpleasantly so but you'll just be more cautious over what you wear.

3. drying clothes in winter can be hard if you can't spin them before drying. Again the clothes horse is the answer as you can move it easily round the house. Most stuff will dry well overnight in the bedroom in which you sleap as your body will raise the room temperature.

4. your whites won't be white, no matter how much you squelch them they'll slowly turn grey.

5. don't be shy about dumping the stuff in the bath tub and trampeling it.

6. doing a little laundry each night is allot easier then doing it all over the weekend.

7. all this washing will dry your hands out allot so maybe invest in a pair of washing up gloves.

8. at the end of the day, it's not actually that bad

[Chickenlady]

The Amish use things like this:
http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product ... ductID=613
Not sure how this is powered - it looks as if it should be by hand. Expensive though.

[QuakerBear]

do people think that maybe other than undies, bed sheets, towels and gardening clothes we could all do with washing our clothes a hella lot less than we are led to believe we should? theres so many moneymakers who 'win' in leading us to believe our clothes need to be washed so often... I think this is especially true here in blighty when for a large portion of the year it is cold enough not to sweat in your clothes. also constant washing clothes surely impairs their quality, meaning it might need to be replaced a lot earlier than perhaps needed? just a thought.

I agree. I only wash it if it's dirty or smells. Sounds gross but it's not really.

[hamster]

do people think that maybe other than undies, bed sheets, towels and gardening clothes we could all do with washing our clothes a hella lot less than we are led to believe we should? theres so many moneymakers who 'win' in leading us to believe our clothes need to be washed so often... I think this is especially true here in blighty when for a large portion of the year it is cold enough not to sweat in your clothes. also constant washing clothes surely impairs their quality, meaning it might need to be replaced a lot earlier than perhaps needed? just a thought.

I agree. I only wash it if it's dirty or smells. Sounds gross but it's not really.

That doesn't sound gross! Why else would you need to wash something?!

[Urban Ayisha]

oh i dunno... i could wear the same pair of trousers for at least a week without them appearing dirty or smelling but some other folk might think that gross!

[ina]

I don't. I often wear clean jeans for "private use" for a few days (ok, that's not all day), and then I wear them for work for up to a week (where they can get quite mucky). And then they get washed, and the cycle starts again...

[mrsflibble]

that's the principle we work on. if it's not got poo, wee or sick on, doesn't smell then don't wash it.

soph's day clothes are rarely clean in the evening, and if they are they get folded and put away. i make sure she's out of her jammies in the morning before breakfast so they can be worn again if her nappy's not leaked that is.

I do one hot white wash once every 2 weeks or so as we don't have that much white stuff to do. our other catagories are
light mixed, dark mixed, woolens and pink stuff.
we have A LOT of pink stuff; it's one of my fave colours. underwear goes in with the mixed stuff. hardly anything gets tumble dried as we have a washerdryer and it lies about the dryer part.
it's crap. We also tend to save up bigger items like sheets and go to a laundrette about once every 2-3 months 'cos it's easier than having sheets
hanging wherever we could fit them in the flat. don't know if we shall continue this trend now we've moved.


finally, my thoughts on Calgon: I once worked out that it's cheaper to save the money you'd spend on Calgon doing an average week's washing (1-2 loads a day)
and you can buy a new washing machine every 2 years. i wouldn't recommend it, but still. mine is now 2.5 years old and still going strong. no limescale damage despite living in a really hard water area, and hubby gives it a service about once every 8 months or so.
here's the maths:

Calgon tablets, average price: £4.08 for 15.
27.2p per tablet

1 load of washing every day for 2 years = 730 loads

730 x 27.2p

=£198.56

for £189.79 you can get this and have £8.77 to spend on a humungous box of washing powder from your local cash and carry or Asda Hypermarket.

**takes a bow**

[JasonP71]

We did this for about six months - washing wasn't really the problem, but it did use a lot of hot water - which could be a problem, and didn't really save any money/energy at all. We found that drying was more difficult, not too bad in the summer, but as winter set in...

We picked up a mangle on ebay for £40 and restored it, which really does cut down the drying time immensely, but you need to look carefully at your clothes - we didn't! And broke a lot of buttons and zips!

We used a plunger head attatched to a long brush pole as an aggitator, seemed to work really well. We bought two of those large trug things (there are six of us!). We also bought an oval shaped cheesegrater which had a small tub attatched to collect cheese, and used this to grate household soap for the mix! (found this in Asda)

Also had a good look at our old washing machine and it wasn't too difficult to hook it up to a hand crank on the back, therefore a cog or similar mechanism for bike power. It was also pretty easy to bypass the valve for the outlet, which I plumbed up to an old tap - could be used to collect grey water. Suppose it all depends on the model, etc, but it was fairly straightforward. It's had a test run, but needs more work if we're going to use it...