Off-Grid Laundry

During the pandemic lockdown, I had limited access to a support house, so I developed my tiny house laundry facility. It is fun to do laundry on a hot day. Plus you can reuse the water for thirsty plants. I tried a lot of different clothes washing equipment before I found what worked for hand washing. The hand crank tumbling washer called a WonderWash did not impress me though it looked good in the catalog. It was too complicated to get water hot enough to create pressure in the chamber The lid had to be screwed on and off which was not really worth the effort for this supposed pressurized effect. It didn’t hold very much and had to be emptied carefully so water wouldn’t run all over the counter. I also tried a washboard, but that was time consuming to apply to every item individually so I keep a small glass one for collars and cuffs. What did work was the plunger style hand washer made from galvanized metal, but the metal would rust if it wasn’t dried carefully and mine would fall off the handle regularly. Finally someone thought to make a plastic version with a firmly attached handle and that is what I use for agitation in a five gallon bucket. I mostly soak the clothes in half a bucket of water with the soap and give it a plunge or two every time I walk by as I’m doing other things. I save that water for another load and transfer the clothes to another five gallon bucket to rinse in a bit more water so the clothes can move freely. I do about three rinses.

For wringing out wet clothes, I loved the hand crank vintage rolling dryers that pressed the water from your clothes, but it’s hard to use. It really takes two pairs of hands. One to feed the clothes into the mangler and one to crank the clothes through, plus it took quite a bit of strength and didn’t really wring the clothes out as much as I would’ve liked for the effort. I sold mine back to bay.

As I browsed for ideas I tried the double bucket system for the DIY savvy. One bucket I drilled full of holes. That’s where you put your dripping wet clothes. Then the second bucket is put into the first bucket and by sitting on this second bucket I could squeeze quite a lot of water from the clothes. I had a shallow garden trug to put the bucket in so I could keep the bucket clean and save the water that was wrung out.

I also found that the Asian market really had this down for apartment dwellers with a hand crank spin dryer. It works a lot like a salad spinner. I got myself one of these nifty machines and got my workout pulling on the handles to operate the spinning mechanism. The clothes came out dryer than they did from the old washing machine at my mothers. 

A vintage style drying rack was my go to for many years, but when I set it up outside a strong wind could blow it over. I could weight it down, but I found something else. A bungee corded cargo net for strapping luggage onto the roof of your car could be stretched from tree limbs and weighted down with lengths of pipe. Then I just hung my socks and underwear in the holes of the netting. Shirts and pants I dried on hangers I could hang in the tree. It was easier to store than a folding rack too. All the equipment could be stashed in a big storage box.

I could also iron clothes inside the tiny house with a small ironing board I could lay on top of my pull out cutting table. I used a travel iron. When you have to go to this much trouble to clean your clothes you tend to wear the same clothes quite a bit more. Thus having one's own labor invested automatically reduced the tendency to use water and energy.