Cob: Re: Washing Machines

[Amanda Peck]

Yes, hand cranked wringers are good.  they may be hard to come by now--as 
opposed to just a couple of years ago.

I wonder if the James guys wheel well operation has been superceded by 
plastic and that's why I can't find the washers any more.

The drains on the rotating ball washing machine jobs leak badly if they get 
the least bit of sand in them, nearly impossible to clean.

Seems like I've run into stuff that's supposed to take iron (red clay) 
stains out of laundry.  I'll post if I find it one of these days.

On a nice day--with breeze--in Tennessee, one can frequently get by taking 
clothes from the washing machine--the old automatic standard kind, hanging 
them on the line, starting a new load, when that's finished the clothes on 
the line are (mostly anyway) dry and you can take everything but the jeans 
down, hang up the new lot, start a third load.  But that's NOT the same as 
hanging dripping wet clothes.

220 sf?


from Mark's reply to my post (snipped of all the fun parts):


Concerning James washers: (After it arrived, I tracked down the manufacturer 
and found that they made the washers in the off-season... when they weren't 
busy making wheel wells for high-end RVs. I thought it was a weird and 
somehow fitting symbiosis.)

>The pressure kind that I do have isn't easy to come by any more


         Is that one of those plastic-rotating-ball-ones?  It's little, 
doesn't do enough at a time to suit me, and she feels like it doesn't really 
get things as clean as a motorized machine.

..... I always washed my clothes with a standard rubber plunger in a bathtub 
back in Minnesota. Worked fine for me.



.....One thing we haven't tried but intend to when it's warmer, now that 
we've obtained the five-gallon plastic buckets (with lids) to do it, is 
putting the laundry in those buckets and putting those buckets on the back 
of the pickup. Let 'em soak overnight (presoaking always helps), drain, add 
warm slightly-soapy water and drive into town to do town chores while the 
clothes agitate over every bump and turn. Rinse and hang when we get home.

....in the southwest, dripping-wet un-wrung clothes will be *totally dry* in 
a couple hours. Everywhere else I've lived, that kind of thing takes 
forEVER. I loathe hand-wringing clothes; the hand-cranked wringer I got with 
the James washer is one of the best things ever.


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