Washing Clothes Without a Washing Machine
I started my quest to learn how to wash a large number of clothes without electric and without a washing machine back in 1999, when Y2K was predicted to happen. This was when the possibility of the electricity and all the computers were predicted to stop working in the year 2000.
Obviously, in the past, we sometimes washed a few clothes that were delicate, by hand in a wash basin. But we don't really do a big wash by hand. We use the washing machine, like everyone else.
However, before Y2K was predicted to happen, one of my experiments was to learn how to wash a lot of clothes without electricity and without a washing machine. I decided to buy this contraption:
It is called a Wonder Wash mini washing machine and it is non-electric.
I tried it out, It cleaned the clothes really well, but there were too many steps you had to take that were time consuming, You had to rotate it with the handle, and I ended up not using the handle, but instead, just turning the whole big container itself. You had to drain the water into another container when you were done. You had to put new rinse water in it without soap. You had to clean it out when you were done. There were other things involved, but since I did this in 1999, I can't even remember. I ended up selling this on eBay. I am not saying that this is a bad choice to wash your clothes, because the clothes do come out clean, but for me, I wanted something a lot more simpler to use.
Also, I wanted something more lightweight, something that did not have a lot of parts that might break, and something that would wash a lot more clothes at once. With this Wonder Wash, you are limited as to how much you can put in it.
So a few years later, I purchased this item: Tin Plated Steel Head Plunger Washer.
I also decided to purchase 2 five gallon plastic buckets from Home Depot.
I filled one up with hot water, my detergent, and I put my clothes in. I fitted a lot more clothes in this five gallon bucket, than I did in the Wonder Wash, and I plunged away. I found it a lot easier to wash clothes this way.
After I plunged up and down, when I felt I did it enough to get the dirt out, I poured the water out, and put some more water in, and plunged some more. I did this maybe twice or three times, until the water was clear, When I wrung out each piece of clothing by hand from the first bucket, I place the clean wrung out clothes in the second bucket. Whether I had used the Wonder Wash or the Plunger, this step would have to be done anyway.
I did find that using the plunger was a lot simpler and easier to do, than using the Wonder Wash.
I also purchased a number of wooden clothes dryers over the years, to hang the clothes on, instead of using an electric dryer:
Now, the solution to washing and drying clothes doesn't end here, because eventually, after storing the metal plunger, and not using it for a number of years, when I went back to take it out of the box to use it again, all the metal had rusted, so it was no good.
I then thought that maybe these plungers might be made out of a material that didn't rust.
I found a plunger made out of plastic and bought it, and used it, and it worked out really well.
Here is a picture of it.
