I got an early Christmas present from Neighbor L!
It’s a teeny little washing machine! And if it works as advertised, it’s going to ease one of the less pleasant winter chores. I don’t mind doing laundry at all when it’s warm, in fact it’s kind of relaxing. But since I never got around to inventing hot running water, laundry in winter can be … painful.
It’s late in the day to try it out and I’ve got bread in the oven, but tomorrow’s supposed to be even nicer and it will definitely get a fair test then.
By my meager experience with those, and I do mean meager, be easy on the soap until you get used to the right amounts. The bubbles form and make for a bit O pressure. It may over ride the lid seal and spew a bit. That is unless things have improved these last 15 years. But those are nice little washers. They also work for tumbling media out of your brass…..not that you should.
Yeah, that’s why I’m trying it outdoors first.
You may be a hermit, but that doesn’t mean you have to smell bad!
You can CHOOSE to smell bad if you want, but you don’t HAVE to…
I’ll be interested to see how well that works. I considered one for our camping trips, then went with the washer plunger/bucket combo based on amazon reviews of the wonderwasher. If the WW turns out enough better I’ll scrap the plungers. Maybe. (If I could find collapsible 10 gallon buckets compactness would win out over efficiency, but that’s not an issue for you)
That looks neat, Joel! And Nosmo, 40 years ago, or so, we used to have collapsible buckets made of canvas for our horseback pack trips. The trick, of course, was to keep them from collapsing when we didn’t want them to do so. LOL Don’t know if anybody still makes them.
I’ll second what Buck said about going easy on the detergent. And don’t get real energetic with the agitating, the thing is plastic. There’s a nifty countertop-sized spin dryer if you wanna get real fancy, too, but it takes ac to power it.
Joel, that is a great gadget — and a great gift from L! Give her a smooch from me for being so thoughtful to you.
@ML – I’ve seen the canvas buckets, but haven’t found any in the 8-10 gallon range. If you know of some, I’d appreciate a link. We use Rubbermaid 10 gallon “mini trash cans” and the plunger-washer gizmo (I sent Joel a set a while back) on campng trips because a pair of 10 gallon R-maids nest and hold all the laundry stuff plus lots more, saving a LOT of space, and work better than 5 gallon buckets). And they’re cheap. Labor intensive, especially on rinse, but did I mention they pack tight and are cheap? If the hand crank washer is more efficient I’ll find the space for it, Joel’s experience will be the acid test.
I think you are ahead using the plastic, Nosmo. Those canvas things were heavy, and not cheap even then. We used them mostly to feed the horses, and haul water from a stream or pond for other things. They were much easier to pack on a horse or mule than anything plastic available at the time. Remember this was 40 years ago. 🙂
Had to laugh because I can’t remember even wanting to wash clothes on a pack trip. We had to limit the weight on the horses, and one extra set of clothes was usually the most we had. Yes, we were quite “ripe” after a week’s pack trip. LOL