Manual Laundry

[i_am2bz]

Exactly, moolie.

Since I'm going thru surgically-induced menopause, if I had to wash something every time I changed my clothes in a single day, all I'd do is laundry. (too hot - oops, now too cold...yikes, too hot, now too cold, etc.)

Especially since I work from home & no one sees me anyway, I wear things over & over...even when things get spilled on, well, then I wear that item when I carry the chickens out to the tractor or weed the garden.

As long as I keep a large stock of clean undies, I'm set for weeks!

 

[SSDreamin]

We purchased a commercial mop bucket, at Sam's, for $30? Since, when the power goes out up home, it could be a week or better before its back on, it works for us. I have a large watering tub that I use for washing (with a plunger and washboard). The mop bucket sits between the wash tub and the 1st rinse tub, then rolls to between it and the 2nd (I guage the need for a second rinse on what's going into the mop bucket). Tedious, yes, but gets a lot of the soap/water out, even from jeans. As it fills up, I dump it back into the wash tub. Drying is similar to everybody else. I do not relish the idea of having to use this method full time, and would probably try to wrangle something else, such as a gas powered wringer washer, AKA Jackie Clay's set up) but it works very well in emergencies and was quite inexpensive to buy the whole set up.

 

[me&thegals]

I would imagine that handwashing clothes would take WAY more water and definitely more time. I don't think clothes washers use much for electricity and very little soap and water. I invest my time in line-drying the clothes instead.

 

[i_am2bz]

Hand-washing all my clothes would never be my first choice. I personally would only do it in an off-grid situation (voluntarily or otherwise).

 

[Britesea]

Aprons and pinafores (especially for children) were very popular in the old days, because they were quick and easy to wash and dry compared to other clothes. You could quickly switch to a clean one in the event of unexpected company. Most people only had 3 outfits- 1 for Sunday and 2 for every day, which were worn for a week and then washed while the 2nd everyday outfit was worn. They wore underarm pads to protect their dresses and shirts from sweat. You washed "that" area every night with clean water, bathed once a week, and washed your hair once a month.

 

[Leta]

Heh. Wash-o-mania. That is true. I am good about rewearing clothes, so is DH to an extent (his work-out-of-the-home clothes have to be washed with every wearing), but man the little ones can't keep anything clean. The days that they are able to wear one set of clothes and last night's pajamas I breathe a sigh of relief!

I want to start moving toward this while we are still in this location because we have an inexpensive laundromat that is less than a mile away. I know I can get caught back up quickly if I fall too far behind, since it's that close. I also want the appropriate equipment to do laundry in case the power goes out- we are in town, so our water stays on even if the electricity is off.

But I'd like to have the handwashing equipment at the rural location, too, because if the power goes out there, a generator will run the pump to get the well water to the house, but we'd need a much bigger generator to run a washer and dryer.

I also think if I start easing into this now, as my little ones get bigger they can start taking over more and more of their own laundry, and that will be much easier.

I handwashed a load a day (pretty much everything but bedding and towels) when it was DH and I in an apartment, and I did it with very rudimentary equipment. So I know I could handle it for two people with good equipment and appropriate linens.

And yes, ITA with whomever said that they key is to do it everyday. It really is. I have a three bag hamper, and the only days I let that thing fill all the way up are days that I'm washing ALL the bedding.

 

[Marianne]

Ahaa! The mop bucket!! I knew there was an alternative for wringing, but couldn't remember it!

I had scrounged the roller part of an old wringer washer and had it around here for a long time. It just went to the dump a couple weeks ago. :/ DH said the rollers were shot...and was giving me 'the look'. Sometimes you have to pick your battles, ya know?

 

[Theo]

Agree about people in bygone days washing clothes and bodies less often. I worked for my grandparents on their farm for two summers. They were both born in 1900. They wore layers of clothes, even in the summer, and the undergarments were changed often, but not the outer clothes.

Also, they washed themselves once a week. You'd think they would be funky old folks, but they were not. I don't know exactly what their daily hygiene consisted of (because I learned early on not to blast open the door of the one and only bathroom) but I suspect they hit the highlights, the pits and the bits, daily, and left the full body treatment, including hair, for Saturday night. I know they used deoderant. It was Iowa, so summers were hot and humid, yet the grandparents, wearing their long summer weight underwear, remained cool and BO free. Amazing.

 

[Leta]

I have noticed that since we made the switch to real soap- that is, *not* detergent- that we need to bathe less. Detergents, especially commercial shampoo, strip oils so severely that skin rebounds by upping the oil production.

I get far fewer breakouts, and I wash my long, thick hair once or twice per week and I barely need to condition it- I rub coconut oil on the ends about once a month, and I rinse with 50%-50% apple cider vinegar and green tea about every other time I wash.

If you are just using a basin or something to take a birdbath, you need 2-4 quarts of water per day to bathe a few times and you will stay very clean and not stinky. My dad said that his great grandparents (his grandparents died young, unfortunately, so his great grandparents were like his grandparents), who never really got used to having electricity and indoor plumbing, used to bathe three times per day (before meals) in the summer, and twice a day (before "dinner"- the noon meal- and before bed) in the winter. His grandpa wore his hair very short, so he just rubbed his head with a washcloth, and his grandma would wash her hair on Wednesdays, as well as on Saturdays in her conventional full body bath.

I can imagine that this, plus frequent washing of clothes worn next to the body, would keep a person quite clean.

I don't want to wear long underwear in the summer, though.

 

[FranklinStreetWest]

Cheap Absorbent Towels: The linen tea-tablecloths that I find at the thrift stores make excellent bath towels. I imagine if you purchased yards of a heavier linen and put a hem in either end, you would have fabulous, durable, bleachable, boilable, repurposable, absorbent bath linens. Or just find old tableclothes and use those till they fall apart. After that they're good for mending or cutting into quilt squares, bandages or rags.

I agree with the earlier poster that referenced old timers and appropriate layers of underwear. If you stick to long white underwear beneath your cloths, you can keep the stink of body odor out of your outer clothes. Whites are easy to boil and bleach the devil out of! I recall both sets of my grandparents engaging in the daily washcloth-in front of the sink-washdown-weekend shower-routine also. One set was Great Depression era, the other WWII ration era. None of them smelled foul... I think our thought process about things has become wastefull...

I can't imagine hand washing taking MORE water... think about it: The washing machine fills with "X" gallons of water; jiggles ALL your filthy clothes around for a few minutes; spins the excess out; fills with same amount of water, jiggles clothes around again, spins them out; done. You can do this same process in a washtub. Fill, scrub, wring; meanwhile have a second huge pot of water on the stove heating; dump dirty water, refill with new hot water, srub, wring; hang to dry. Same process just elbows deep in water with prune fingers. Front loaging machines use even LESS water, I wonder how much filtier those clothes are because the dirt isn't diluted by as much water?