Hand Washing Our Laundry (Part 2)

This is a series of videos about our transition to hand washing our laundry.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Homesteading
• laundry
• hand
• washing

[roguegirl29]

Can you hand wash clothes in the bathtub or in a sink?

[pocketsofthefuture]

@roguegirl29 Yes, you certainly can. You won't get the same action of really pushing a lot of water through the fabric in a sink, for instance, because it is so much smaller. But you can do it. I have a friend who used to wash clothes in her tub. She had her little girls get in there barefoot and stomp on the clothes to get them clean. They loved it!

[ylen13]

Do you live in the middle of nowhere? Why are you washing cloth by hand?

[pocketsofthefuture]

There is a whole story involving broken washers and other things that propelled us into washing laundry by hand. My wife detailed it in a blog post. She also just wanted to learn how to do it and see what the process might teach her.

[AnnieNM06]

this may be a dumb question but why can't you just put the sopping wet clothes directly on the clothes lines and skip the wringer thingie?

[pocketsofthefuture]

Thank you for the question. For one thing the clothes would be very heavy - particularly jeans and towels - which would stretch out your lines or even break them (imagine an entire line of painstakingly washed clothes falling to the ground from a broken laundry line). For another, sopping wet clothes would take a very long time to dry, especially in the winter. Hand wringing clothes is really tough on your hands and wrists and tougher also on the clothing itself. Wringers really help.

[JDRgoddess]

I have a question, or a couple, do you live where it snows? If so, how does your wife dry the laundry? Thanks.

[2JobsStillPoorUSA]

Heh the engineer in me would be figuring out how to power the ringer and plunger by using a bicycle power.... I also think I would cut a hole in a lid for those buckets to contain some of the splash back.

[getrealthen]

@pocketsofthefuture

when putting a piece of clothing through with buttons or zippers, you have to fold the the clothing so they are in the very center of the clothing,and then feed it through the wringer. This cushions the hardware on the clothing.

[getrealthen]

@pocketsofthefuture

you can get one of those mop buckets with the mop wringer on them, that works good to. but in the summer time, your clothes dry FASTER than a clothes drier.

[cdltpx]

That is what I miss about my childhood family we use to do things together. We used a washer to clean the clothes but we hung them out bc we saved energy. I remember running to the clothes line when storms would break out to hurry and get the clothes in off the line. We were very aware of the weather patterns and would get the clothes before it would rain.

[rncmomx2]

She robally does it for the same reason I do, to get back to basics. I know it has taught my chilren responsability. They wash there own clothes so the dirtier they are the harder they have to work (they keep there clothes reallllly clean hehehe). Washing with the rapid washer also helps you build muscle and works your heart (in a good way) , it is truly not for the lazy.