| Laundry: Anyone washing without electricity? |
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| posted Aug 18, 2007 11:27:57 PM | To All |
I noticed that there is an "old-fashioned" washer/wringer for sale on this website. I'm about to move into an apartment that doesn't have laundry and I'm thinking of outfitting myself with the equipment to do all of my laundry without machines.
I would love to hear from anyone who is already doing this. Is it as difficult as all the "how-things-were-in-your-grandmother's-time" accounts seem to suggest? |
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| Laundry: Anyone washing without electricity? |
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| posted Aug 19, 2007 9:14:19 PM | To All |
It's not hard at all, as long as you don't mind spending an hour or so every other day washing your stuff, and if you don't mind your clothes getting a little worn in. Another thing is drying by clothesline - your clothes get a little "hard" when dried.
When I was in Mexico growing up each place we lived in had a concrete washboard and sink for washing clothes. I'd usually wash my school uniform - shirt and pants - and any other clothes like t-shirts, jeans, socks, etc.
I always used powder soap and it worked well. I've only washed a few things by hand with gel detergent, but it's so concentrated that sometimes it can be really hard to get out.
It can actually be fun and calming. It's one of those practices that you can get into and take your mind off of other things. Plus, when you get stains out of shirts you really do feel proud :)
I'd say go for it if you can stay committed. |
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"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." -Aldo Leopold
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| Laundry: Anyone washing without electricity? |
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| posted Aug 20, 2007 5:00:26 PM | To All |
First, let me say that I think most people wash their clothes much more often than is necessary. If I wear something and it does not get dirty, but perhaps just needs to be 'aired out' before being worn again, then I do just that - hang it up to air out. When I have access to a clothesline, I use that. If not, then I use indoor drying racks for that purpose. There's also nothing wrong with spot-cleaning an item - say if you get a grass stain on a pair of jeans that are otherwise clean, what's the problem with just focusing on the grass stain? You don't have to wash the butt of the pants just because there is a grass stain on the knee. Just a thought.
There have been times in my life where I have washed clothes by hand for financial reasons; namely, that I did not want to spend the change to go to the laundromat. (I am an apartment-dweller and do not have my own washing/drying machines.) For the most part, this works fine. I usually prepared my laundry in the following way: all bras and undies go in one pile, all socks in another, and then everything else (the big stuff) goes in another pile. I did most of my laundry using various plastic containers placed in the bathtub.
Here was my process: put soap and warm water in two containers (one with the socks and one with the bras/underwear). Swish the water around a bit, and then go do something else for about 30 minutes. Then come back and swish the clothes around some more. (I used a huge wooden spoon for this, especially in the winter when i didn't want to deal with excess water on the hands, which led to very dry skin.) Then I would dump the soapy water and fill each container (with wet clothes in it) with clean water. Then I would start a third container with clear water for rinsing.
Now, many people, when washing things by hand, insist on rinsing the living daylights out of everything. if you didn't go to overboard with the soap to start with, then this isn't necessary. I could usually rinse, say, 5 pairs of underwear in one bucket of clean water, before noticing that slight filminess on the the water surface that indicated to me that it was time to change the water. (I also should mention that I have very sensitive skin and was concerned that if I didn't get rid of every last trace of soap, that I would end up with a rash - but that never happened. I would, however, recommend using some form of detergent that is free of dyes, scents, etc.)
The trick for doing clothes by hand is to try to get as much water out of them before hanging them to dry - and if you buy some sort of device that allows you to wring and/or spin your clothes, well, that would be a great time saver. Plus, it would save a lot of the wear and tear on the clothing that might come from wringing it out by hand (which is usually easiest if you twist the item over on itself to wring the water out - not very fiber-friendly).
I don't think this takes that much time out of your day, either. I was married then, and would do laundry for both myself and my husband, but I think that if I kept on top of things - doing a load or two every other day - I never had to spend hours doing it.
For bigger items, like shirts, jeans, etc., they are a little more time-consuming. I would follow the same procedure as outlines above, but with bigger buckets. (My collection of buckets were random leftovers, nothing fancy, They included an old dishpan, a 5-gallon bucket, some cheap plastic tubs, etc. Whatever I had on hand was used.)
The one thing that is a pain with larger pieces of clothing is trying to rinse them thoroughly, without using 50 gallons of water. Sure, I could put a pair of jeans in a 5-gallon bucket and just keep filling, swishing, and emptying the water through several changes in order to get them totally soap-free, but that's not a great idea. Sometimes I would let them sit in the soapy water, and then I would get in the shower (naked) and turn on the water and hold them up and use the shower head to rinse them off. (Probably not very water-conservation-friendly either, but I got to wash me and the jeans at the same time, so at least there are bonus-points for multi-tasking.)
What I would usually end up doing is washing shirts, underwear, socks, and smaller items at home, and save one or two occasional loads of laundry for the laundromat - like two weeks' worth of towels, sheets, etc. And even then, I would usually bring my stuff home wet and hang it on drying racks in the apartment.
What I would suggest, if you're serious about giving this a try, would be to do some laundry by hand in the tub and see if it is a worthwhile use of your time, before you go buying gadgets for it. If you decide you can't stand it and that you have too many other important things to do, then by all means get machines, or go to the laundromat and do other work while you are waiting for your clothes (I always used to bring paperwork, or the last few issues of some magazine or something to get caught up on things while I sat there).
Or, you may decide that you don't mind doing things with your own hands, and the activity, while perhaps not totally joyful, was not horrible - then go for it. I often would spend the time allowing my mind to wander, to go over things in my life, to daydream - it was sort of a forced contemplative time, as I couldn't take notes or do much else at the same time, as my hands were all wet.
Granted, your experience might be very different if you use a device for this, but I think it is good to reconnect with experiences like doing one's own laundry - it's one of those things we take for granted, that we never have to really think about.
And don't be to concerned about your clothes taking a beating this way. I've been washing my bras by hand for years, and find that they will last YEARS if done by hand. (In fact, I have some well-made bras I've had for 4 years that have always been washed by hand. There's no way I could have gotten that many years out of bras if I threw them in the washing machine.)
As for clothes being 'stiff' when air-dried, this is true to a degree. But it's not horrible, and the stiffness goes away not long after you put them on and they warm up to your body temperature. And after a while, you won't ever think that there is a difference between air-dried and machine-dried clothing. (And machine-drying shortens the lifespan of your clothes, as well as the fact that it often shrinks them too.)
Towels are often more absorbent when air-dried.
You will have to think about what kind of life you lead (e.g., I never cared about having drying racks permanently set up in my bedroom, but if you are frequently entertaining guests, and that would bother you, then that is something to think about), and whether you really want to spend time on laundry. I tend to think that it is a good exercise to pay attention to things in life that we normally don't think about (sort of like focusing on breathing, but just a little more banal, perhaps).
Anyway, I'm all for it. Good luck. |
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| Laundry: Anyone washing without electricity? |
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| posted Aug 22, 2007 12:10:48 PM | To All |
I used to live in an apartment and hand-washed my clothes. I would wring them out and hang them on a hanger or clothesline over the bathtub. I think air or line drying makes clothes last longer since they don't tumble in a dryer.
I disagree with "pythoness" about not washing clothes. Iam sensitive to chemicals and need to wear fresh clothes everyday. Everywhere you go and everything you do affects the dirt and chemicals that get into your clothes. Examples are perfumes, etc. inside your clothes, your body sweats and detoxifies all day. If you "rewear" your dirty clothes, you're wearing yesterday's dirt!
I also do not recommend using "public washers." Other people's perfumes and chemicals get into the plastic parts of the washers. I have to use organic vinegar in my wash to get rid of perfumes from other people. |
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