How many of the blogs you read have a subject tag for laundry? Mine does. It's not that laundry is exciting, sexy, or glamorous; it's more like laundry is a fact of life. Unless you are a full-time nudist, you're always going to have some dirty clothes to wash. If you have children or you like to garden or muck around in the big composting pile of horse manure, you probably have a LOT of laundry to do.
I am not advocating that you do all your laundry by hand. If you have the time and energy to do so, it's a great way to save electricity and probably water as well. However, more people are willing to save energy and water on laundry by only washing full loads, using cold water, and line-drying than go to full-time hand washing.
Being able to wash clothes by hand, though, is helpful for those times when you've got clothes that you absolutely need for the next day and don't want to run the machine just for a couple of items. There are also those times when the machine breaks or the power goes out, but you still need to wash some clothes. Some people don't mind hand-washing in their sinks or tubs, but I prefer to use a plunger-type tool and a bucket. It's easier on my wrists and shoulders - two joints with ongoing issues - and makes it much easier to dump the water into a nearby tree basin.
You may remember from my hand-washing laundry post two years ago that I had purchased the "Rapid Washer" from Lehman's. (See picture in post linked above.) It was a nice design and, after my sweetie drilled a hole through the top of the handle to put a rope through it, it could be hung up outside to dry.
I tried it out this afternoon and was pleased with its performance. I think it worked just a little better than the Rapid Washer.
I know that I could have purchased a plain old rubber toilet plunger and drilled some holes in it to "hack" a homemade laundry plunger, but I like having one designed specifically for the job and easy to take apart for cleaning and drying. Plus, I know this one will never be put in a poopy toilet and then used on my clothes. There's a lot to be said for that!
8 comments:
Gonna have to try that one, too. I like my Rapid Washer and it hasn't started to rust, yet, so I'll wait a bit. But, I do like the idea of being able to take it apart to air out all the little crevices. The plastic might even be more gentle on delicates. What do you think?
I agree it may be better for delicates. Order it now rather than waiting, though. It's on sale!
Now that I have a much bigger backyard the chilluns seem to have many more soil stains. That means a lot more laundry for me. Do you think I could wrangle my 3-year-old into plunging his own clothes?
This is an intriguing idea. Also since we need to pay for water in this place. I know, I know, I should be conserving water even if I don't have to pay for it, but putting a monetary value to something makes it easier for me to see the real world value. Silly, huh?
Okay, sorry for the ramble. What I'm trying to say is I might buy one of these, even if it's just for my shirts.
Krista, money is a great motivator. Nothing wrong with trying to trim you household budget. In my case, we're on a community well and only pay for the electricity to pump the water.
However, in looking at the big picture, I want to conserve water in our water table so that the pump doesn't have to continually be lowered over time. That's a good motivator for me to conserve water as well as use greywater so that it replenishes the water table.
In some ways, I wish our group on the well got together regularly. It'd be nice to gently broach some conservation measures.
Good to know. I agree with you that plastics can be useful if chosen wisely and then treated with care so they last. That being said I have to classify mydelf as one of those who are willing to save energy and water on laundry by only washing full loads, using cold water. When younger, I use to do the bathtub method of clothes washing to save going to the laundrymat. My feet have never been so clean as in those days!
Well, I took the plunge (Bwahahahahaha..hehe..hooo..snort...*wipes tears*), bought a toilet plunger, and cut some vents in the top. The plunger came without the handle attached, so I was able to wander over to the broom aisle and find a longer handle that fit the plunger head quite nicely. I love the longer handle because I don't need to bend over to agitate my clothes.
Today is my first day doing some wash with my plunger and it's really easy! I had tired the stomping method in my tub but it didn't seem to work as well. Now that we're car-free (foe the time being) I want to save my leg muscles for biking and walking, so the plunger is the best bet for us.
The best part is my kids take a lot of baths because of the afore mentioned backyard. Now I can save the water from their baths and use it to wash their dirty clothes. Since I make my own laundry detergent I can then take the buckets of used water out for my plants. I'm stoked about this set up. I'll have to stop hijacking your thread and just blog about it in my own corner of the internet.
Thank you for all the thoughtful tutorials.
Cool beans, Krista! I'm heading over to your blog to see if you did a post on it yet. :)
That's a great idea getting a longer handle, too. I'll have to look into that because the slight bending over required does get wearisome.
Nope, haven't blogged about it yet, but I'll let you know when that happens.
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