Tomorrow is laundry day here. I recently bought a washboard, which works great on stains! DH decided to suprise me when he found a wringer washer at a yard sale. He knew that I had wanted one for years and had raved about how well they worked. He decided then and there it would be my Mother's Day gift.
By the time I came home he was trying it out. He had the first load of darks going and was working hard. He had run many buckets of water through cleaning the machine and was as excited as I was.
Tomorrow will be our very first complete laundry day at our home. I think we are ready. Did I forget anything??? We will find out!
Laundry soap, I make my own.
Recipe -
1 bar Fels Naptha laundry soap ($1.49 a bar at Safeway)
1 cup soda (I use baking as I won't have washing soda in my home for safety reasons)
1 cup borax
5 gallon bucket with lid.
Chop bar of soap into pieces and toss in blender, blend until powder. Add to 2 quarts or so of hot water and heat until soap disolves. Fill 5 gallon bucket with HOT tap water, leave room for heating soap and water. Add disolved soap. Stir well. Add soda, stir. Add borax, stir. This will gel in about 24-48 hours, but can be used immediately. Cost $2.50 for 5 gallons. Use 1/4-1 cup per load depending on your water and how soiled the clothes are.
1 bottle fabric softener -
Recipe -
1/2 a bottle hair conditioner (I use the .88 bottle of Suave Citrus from Walmart)
2 cups white vinegar
fill the bottle with water.
I re-use an old fabric softener bottle for this. Combine ingredients and shake well, but gently (so as not to foam.) Cost less than $1 per bottle.
I bought blueing today, and have not tried it. I will let you know about that.
I fixed the kitchen faucet so that I don't have to fill the washer with buckets. I used an old hose that split during the spring storms and cut it off just before the split.
I have 1 rinse tub for tomorrow, the second one isn't ready yet. I have a hose to drain the tubs with. By draining with a hose, I can run the grey water straight out to the garden, re-using water. Conserving water here is very important as we are in a drought.
I made an agitator for the rinse “cycle”. I bought a new toilet plunger ($1.50) and cut 4 holes in it. The children will take turns rinsing the clothing with it. The holes let the water circulate and agitate the clothing, thoroughly rinsing. The clothes are put through the wringer a second time. Once I have my second rinse tub, we will rinse a second time.
We plan to be up at 7:00 and have everything on the line by 9:00.
Here is our plan of attack. DD (11) is going to sort laundry, as soon as a load of light colors is ready she will let us know, she will also put stained items aside for the scrubboard. DS (7) and I will be filling the tubs and setting up. DD (11) will start helping to scrub stained items, and dd (9) is going to keep an eye on dd (3).
As soon as we can, the first load will go in, 15 minutes to agitate. I will take over stain work. When the 15 minutes are up, I will run the first load through the wringer, with dd (9) help. DS will reload the washer. DD (11) will trade off to watch DD (3). It looks like we will have 6 loads, we will do 3 loads per wash water, then change out water and soap. We should be able to rinse each load and have it on the line, in the 15 minutes it takes to wash the next one. At 15 minutes a load we should have ample time to get ALL laundry done in 2 hours for the week.
We plan to start with the lightest colored clothing and work to the heavy, dark clothes, and only do a white load if there is enough to do 2 loads of whites, if not we will wait to do those until another day. I hope to do 2 laundry days a week, one for whites (did those Sunday) and 1 for colors. Sunday we were home from church ill and wanted to try out the new washer!
We are saving almost $50.00 a month in electricity just on drying clothes. This way of washing will help us save even more on washing. A typical week the old way, ran the washer for 12 hours a week, we hope to lower that energy use to 4 hours a week, cutting electric costs to 1/3. We also have a water problem with the drought and needed to find a way to conserve water, this way of doing laundry will greatly help in our goal there. On laundry day we often come close to running our well dry, this way will not only save the well, but re-use the water on the garden, helping to feed us.
Cost of doing laundry this way…
Wringer washer – $40.00
Scrubboard – $30.00
Soap – $2.50 per 5 gallon
Softener – $1.00 per bottle
Blueing – $2.69 per bottle
Labor – free
Time working together with children – priceless!
For more information on doing laundry the old fashioned way, read
Wringer Washers – Why They Are Frugal
For other soap recipes, try
About that (Frugal) Laundry Detergent
For a new wringer washer or the James hand washer, visit Lehmans. The electic wringer washer is a newer model of mine.
Thursday morning update. Things didn't go as planned. I got started 45 minutes late and instead of 6 loads we had 12 loads to do. I ran out of room on the lines and had to quit and leave the last 3 loads for another day. We did get 9 loads done! In 3 hours and 15 minutes. Which for a first time is just not bad, I don't think. I will be scheduling 2 mornings a week for laundry, as it looks like we will regularly have about 12 loads per week. I did tell the children, “HANG UP YOUR BATH TOWEL! and REUSE IT!” I did 2.5 loads of towels alone! I am pleased with how well it went. I did find that I need to use hot water to dissolve the laundry soap. So if you are using my recipe, put in a little straight hot, swish around, then put in cold or warm water.
Have a great day!
Joyfully,
Cheryl
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A good hand clothes wringer made all the difference in washing or should I say drying the laundry. Without a wringer you can expect the laundry to take a couple days to dry depending on the weather.
The best hand clothes wringer I found was one I found on http://www.getpreparedstore.com It takes more water out of the wet clothes than -
Hi, I was wondering why you do not use the washing soda.
Also the information in the comments section about Fels Naptha soap is incorrect, at least it is incorrect for the bars I have. Right on the wrapper (I am holding it in my hand as I type) it says
INGREDIENTS: CLEANERS, SOIL & STAIN REMOVERS, CHELATING AGENTS, COLORANTS, PERFUME.
***CONTAINS NO NAPHTHALENE***Just wanted to pass on that information
I really would love to hear more about your laundry adventures, I really love simple living. -
i’m making great headway on my towel quest! It’ll take too much time to type it again; go see my blog about it: sixredheads.com
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I’m still really impressed! I”m doing more homework on that towel thing though. My towels are shot and it’s time to replace them…I doubt that the Mennonite communities use thick terrycloth. I’m trying to chase down what they *do* use and see if I can’t convert!
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My friend recently purchased a washboard too and I thought she was nuts. I think I may have to get one!
Blessings,
~Becky -
Naphthaline is the chemical in Fels Naphtha soap that helps it be more effective than, say, Ivory. It was used as a pesticide for a long time, but not as much now because there are more effective ones on the market (I don’t like any of them, myself).
Naphthaline is the chemical in mothballs and moth crystals. The concentrated fumes can make you sick.
Ingestion of napthaline can cause long term health problems.
If you need to use your grey water for the garden, please pick a more natural soap for the washing. You’d hate to have to face your children in 25 years and explain how thrift helped play a role in permanent loss of fertility. [not said to chide, but to sincerely reach another mother's heart, because I know it would rip my heart out to have inadvertently harmed my children with such a thing, as I am sure it would yours]
This is from a fact sheet on naphthaline: “Naphthalene is a suspected human carcinogen, and has been proven to cause damage to the kidneys and to the liver. Chronic exposure can lead to reproductive defects including fetal damage and decreasing fertility. Higher incidences of lung and skin tumors have been reported for people who have been occupationally exposed to naphthalene and other PAHs (4). ”
The wringer washer sounds like a real treasure. I do hope you are able to find something safer to use with it.
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I still don’t have an inclination to try the wringer part. I think it’s because my primary motivation isn’t the electricty/water, but the goal of having cleaner clothes. The same thing happned to me that you shared about; once you start hanging clothes you realize UP CLOSE how much grit the conventional washers miss. So I want to hand scrub my stuff but I don’t want to lug buckets of water, use a separate rinse tub, and wring, which is why I thought of using my washer for that part. I’m considering though, that to be really worth it, I may eventually end up “whole hog”
. I’ll be watching those yard sales! -
When the soap does gel, you may want to mix it with just a little hot water first to un-gel it. I noticed in cold water it would clump!
Yes, the cost of the board included $8.00 for shipping. I went with the stainless steel one instead, as it has two different washing surfaces, one for sturdy clothes, one for delicates.
You can make your own plunger thing and then spend your money on the wringer! That made it SO much easier.
Don’t buy it new though. Yard sale season is almost here, you should be able to find one REALLY CHEAP.
Joyfully,
Cheryl -
How come your washboard cost 30? Was that including shipping? The most expensive one I found (glass) was 20 but I’ve only looked at a few.
I’m still getting my brain around this for us. I too have cut our bill by using my clothesline for drying and I”m itching to make a dent with my inefficient washer too. My plan so far is a little different: I”m going to start with a tub and board, a stick, maybe that plunger looking thing from Lehmans, some homemade detergent and blueing. I’m going hand wash in cold for everything but whites. And then rinse/wring in the washer.
What are the concerns over washing soda? And does yours really gel? I made this same recipe in FL many times and never once did it gell for me. I constantly wondered what I did wrong. So far all I can see is that I didn’t put it in the blender but I did fully disolved it in hot water so I don’t see why that would matter. I also added Lemon essential oil for scent
. You go!!! I’m also going to have to not pick a laundry “day” as the weather here is so unpredictable; I’ll have to do wash according to the forecast and stay flexible.
Keep us updated!
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Inspiring!
I especially like that you can reuse the grey water, in addition to saving money on every other step of the process.
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