# Washing close



## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

Has anyone got any ideas on how to was close when the grid goes down? 
Keep in mind I don't care much for unnecessary manual labor
I got an old ringer washer Maytag to work with is you got an idea.

I'm drawing a blank here
close <is that right?


----------



## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

budgetprepp-n said:


> Has anyone got any ideas on how to was close when the grid goes down?
> Keep in mind I don't care much for unnecessary manual labor
> I got an old ringer washer Maytag to work with is you got an idea.
> 
> ...


There are some good manual camp style clothes washers out there for less than 100 buck. Here's one but I'm sure you could make one using a bucket and a plunger? 
http://www.amazon.com/As-Seen-On-TV...5293553&sr=8-5&keywords=manual+clothes+washer


----------



## tango (Apr 12, 2013)

There is a funnel type tool, with holes, for washing clothes in a tub.
Washing clothes is not difficult, you need water, soap, and some labor.
A clothes line for drying.


----------



## sparkyprep (Jul 5, 2013)

Close= clothes.

You are doing fine. We all understood what you meant.


----------



## rice paddy daddy (Jul 17, 2012)

Like Slippy said, a galvanized tub and a toilet plunger.
Also, a flat hard surface such as concrete, and a stiff bristled brush. Millions of Third World women take their clothes down to the river and lay them on a rock and scrub away.


----------



## MI.oldguy (Apr 18, 2013)

These are still around..........No, I am not that old!


----------



## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

rice paddy daddy said:


> Like Slippy said, a galvanized tub and a toilet plunger.
> Also, a flat hard surface such as concrete, and a stiff bristled brush. Millions of Third World women take their clothes down to the river and lay them on a rock and scrub away.


Hummmmmmmmm. a third word woman? 
I hear that they don't eat much ether.

J/K sorry couldn't help it


----------



## Old SF Guy (Dec 15, 2013)

All it takes is agitation and a mixture that separates oils. Think of how a washer works....it spins and turns clothes thru a chemical. You could do the same via a drum turned by a bicycle. its about the chemical more than the device. Break down the oil and you get clean clothes.


----------



## GasholeWillie (Jul 4, 2014)

MI.oldguy said:


> These are still around..........No, I am not that old!


I have one of those wash boards sitting in my living room as a decoration, straight out of the basement where my mother used it to wash clothes prior to electric wash machine. Just need the tub!


----------



## Old SF Guy (Dec 15, 2013)

You know...we bathe more now more than ever... I have personally gone 8 months between a real shower or bath. Using only a cup of water to clean myself. I wore the same uniform for 8 months...washing it by hand every month or so. My wife thinks i'm a dirty ass bug if I go a day without a shower...yet in combat I went many months and had no issues other than a bad smell. I'm sure she would rather be clean...but I would rather be hydrated. So look on our past to learn about necessity over nicety.


----------



## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

I just spent 3 weeks in my off grid cabin (heavenly!) I did my laundry by hand. I used two devices. One is a tumbling tub and uses hot water which creates a pressurized system that supposedly forces the soap and dirt through the fabric. It worked OK, but would be better with some clamps to hold the unit down. Wonder Clean Washer

I also used the plunger type thingie and a 5 gallon bucket. I think I liked this better, actually. If you slightly rotate the handle and get a rocking motion going, you can get some pretty good agitation. You can also reach into the bucket and move the jeans around a bit if needed. The plunger has a strainer like thingie that forces water in and out. It's pretty simple technology, but worked well. 
Mobile Washer (Hand Operated Washing Machine)

Wash the whites first, then use the same water to wash several batches of clothes with dirty jeans last. Do the same with rinse water - start with clean and rinse several batches until you have to change it.

No way would I use a wash board. That is pretty hard work and will just wreck your fabric and your knuckles. And yes, I have washed clothes on a rock in a river - again, not anything I want to do again. First of all, you need a river, and then you need to get wet, which means drying more clothes. Also a pretty vulnerable situation for a woman.

I'm so glad this thread came up, because my biggest problem was wringing the clothes out. I really need to find a wringer. That is really hard to do by hand, especailly with towels or jeans. There are several available online, but $149 - really???? For a wringer????

If anyone has used a hand wringer they would recommend, I'd sure like to hear about it. I also thought about using a janitors bucket that has the mop squeezie thing on the side. Could use the plunger in the bucket itself and then press out with the mop squeezie. Has anyone done this?

PS, I would give my eye teeth for my old Maytag wringer washer I had in Papua New Guinea. Cast iron, weighed a ton, looked like a giant white bedpan, but man could that thing wash and wring clothes! I'd find a way to make it work with a solar panel!


----------



## Moonshinedave (Mar 28, 2013)

Dasher Washer


----------



## Innkeeper (Jun 18, 2014)

Old SF Guy said:


> You know...we bathe more now more than ever... I have personally gone 8 months between a real shower or bath. Using only a cup of water to clean myself. I wore the same uniform for 8 months...washing it by hand every month or so. My wife thinks i'm a dirty ass bug if I go a day without a shower...yet in combat I went many months and had no issues other than a bad smell. I'm sure she would rather be clean...but I would rather be hydrated. So look on our past to learn about necessity over nicety.


Been there, done that, have the T-shirt. I was in a little place once we had water from a well because we were in the middle of a dangerous city, but it had so much sulfur in the water you came out of the shower smelling worse then when you went in. So I waited til my rotation back to base camp and used baby wipes, the only excess water going to shave, sadly I was not in a unit allowed to grow facial hair.


----------



## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

I LOVE the dasher! It would be perfect with a drain on the bottom and a wringer on the side.


----------



## SquirrelBait (Jun 6, 2014)

I have one of these:Vintage Laundry Plunger Rapid Washer Galesburg Illinois Wooden Handle Childers | eBay I also make my own laundry soap. I'll be buying two brand new (Clean) mop buckets with wringers when I get the chance too.


----------



## LunaticFringeInc (Nov 20, 2012)

I have two neighbors that are using this and they are quiet happy with it. It seems like it will do a couple of pairs of jeans or 3-4 shirts at a time. They say it only takes a few minutes and does a stupendous job of cleaning your clothes. Been thinking about getting one myself here lately. It would work well for those things you wear daily but on things like bed sheets and such I would probably be better off just hitting the laundry mat up. I figure I could probably save about 25-30 bucks a month going this route about 8 months out of the year. I suppose when you look at it from that perspective it would be well worth purchasing...that's a lot of money!


----------



## Prepadoodle (May 28, 2013)

Lehman's sells quite a few manual washing solutions. For example...

Lehman Pressure Handwasher 

For those who don't know about Lehman's, they originally started off selling to the local Amish community near their store in Ohio. They carry a wide variety of "old time" stuff of interest to preppers and homesteaders. They have manually operated versions of many machines, along with supplies for canning, cheese making, oil lanterns, and a whole lot of other cool stuff you didn't think were being made anymore. Most of it is made in the USA, and they offer a free printed catalog.

Lehmans.com


----------



## tirednurse (Oct 2, 2013)

I've had my eye on this one. I have a patient who uses this as there only washer and it works great. They are in their 60's and 70's and have no problem using it to wash with. Would never do blankets but big enough for pretty much anything else. 
Lehmans sells every thing you need for what ever method chosen but they are a bit expensive. see lots of things in their catalog that I can buy cheaper here and not pay the shipping cost, so watch out for that.


----------



## RNprepper (Apr 5, 2014)

Preppadoodle,
I also mentioned the pressure washer (Wonder Clean Washer) in my previous post. In my opinion, the much cheaper plunger type washer (Mobile Washer -Hand Operated Washing Machine) does an equal if not better job. The pressure washer is actually quite small. It can do maybe 3 t-shirts at a time, tops. Or one pair of jeans. It also needs to be clamped down and it jumps around when you turn the handle. If One had $50 - $75 to spend, I think I'd go with a good quality, large volume mop bucket with mop wringer. I'd use the plunger type washer in the bucket. The wringer would make all the difference in the world. If I hd a LOT more to spend, I'd go with the dasher and wringer. It can certainly do larger loads.


----------



## big paul (Jul 14, 2014)

same as I did when I was unemployed with no washing machine, wash clothes by hand in the kitchen sink.


----------



## Moonshinedave (Mar 28, 2013)

I can't see the Dasher washer being very hard to build at all, that is without the wringer. Here is a 3 bucket clothes press that is low tech, but looks like it outta work, and is cheap.


----------



## rice paddy daddy (Jul 17, 2012)

budgetprepp-n said:


> Hummmmmmmmm. a third word woman?
> I hear that they don't eat much ether.
> 
> J/K sorry couldn't help it


Actually the picture in my mind at the time was a rural Vietnamese Mamasan with facial skin like a water buffalo, smoking a spliff and what few teeth she had left were black from chewing betelnut.
Not exactly someone you would want to bring home.


----------



## paraquack (Mar 1, 2013)

Looks very interesting Moonshinedave. Thanks for the video


----------



## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

Washing clothes by hand is easy - wringing them out by hand before hanging will remove the skin from your hands. Yes, I have done that and I would build a wringer or a centrifuge before doing it again.

To conserve resources I would modify a front loading washer and wash the clothes with a hand crank and then rinse and spin with the hand crank. That would get most of the water out of the clothes and then you can hang them to air dry - they dry even faster in the winter - they are just stiffer. You shake the Ice off and hang them for another hour and they are dry. Hanging clothes indoors is a bad idea. It leads to very high humidity and mold growth. I could make a wringer too but if you can do a better job with a tub spinning then why bother with a wringer - I suppose I could sell them... I'll have to draw up plans and then build it to see how it works.


----------



## SquirrelBait (Jun 6, 2014)

PaulS said:


> Washing clothes by hand is easy - wringing them out by hand before hanging will remove the skin from your hands. Yes, I have done that and I would build a wringer or a centrifuge before doing it again.
> 
> To conserve resources I would modify a front loading washer and wash the clothes with a hand crank and then rinse and spin with the hand crank. That would get most of the water out of the clothes and then you can hang them to air dry - they dry even faster in the winter - they are just stiffer. You shake the Ice off and hang them for another hour and they are dry. Hanging clothes indoors is a bad idea. It leads to very high humidity and mold growth. I could make a wringer too but if you can do a better job with a tub spinning then why bother with a wringer - I suppose I could sell them... I'll have to draw up plans and then build it to see how it works.


I ended up wearing blisters into my hands wringing hand washing after the Ex gambled a hundred dollars of our budget away...


----------

