Laundry question

[wife]

Hi all! Today I washed our laundry by hand. Our washer broke and my husband tried to fix it but it was to no avail. Has anyone had any experience with hand washing? What about wringers? I am find to wash and rinse my hand, but I hand wring too, and it just kills my hands! Also< by the time I was done with the final rinse, my hands were not up to par with getting enough water out of the clothes. I'm sure my husband will be getting another washer soon, but in the mean time as well as maybe even for future use, does anyone know of a good hand crank wringer? Could you share some info on them?

[wife]

For Christmas, my single brother bought me a washer. He is a police officer in Durham, NC, has a small apartment and a dog. He says he doesn't need anything so he spends his money usually on my daughters, but this year it was on me. He blessed me so much- I know it's a material thing, but still.

I have been using the dryer on the clothes, and I can really tell. While things come out softer, the elastic comes out much older than if we just hung it to dry. It's been much too cold and nasty outside for that, so I'll be hanging things in our upstairs hallway. It's open to the downstairs, and then our children have a bedroom up there. This is terrible to say, but if I hang the laundry up on the railing and such, at least the treadmill can finally get some use!

[SisterNancy]

Praise God that was kind of your brother to do for you!

I use to wash the clothes by hand in my bath tub when my kids were younger. We coudln't always afford the laundromat. Anyway, I never knew of a hand crank or anything so I just hung them and wrung them the best I could. Sometimes we would sometimes spring for a dryer at the laundromat. I am blessed now with a washer and a dryer. I don't mind admitting I like them. But, it is still great to hang things outside in the spring and summer.

[Sister Penny]

Dear Sister,
I used to do my laundry all by hand, I would let the more soiled things soak overnight, (I used 5 gallon buckets) for the agitation part, I had purchased a plunger and that sure saved my hands in that area.

I also hand wrung them out, it truly gets very painful by the time you are done with a lot of clothing, I can relate..We can hang our clothes outside in the winter or good weather, they will dry eventually.

One good word of advice, please wear rubber gloves, that will save your skin from the harsher soaps.

God bless,
Sister Penny

[wife]

I had not thought of rubber gloves. I make my own soap, but still I have rung blisters onto my hands before. I love hanging the laundry but sometimes I just don't have the time nor has the weather cooperated lately.

[glenda]

Hello all. I know this is a old post but i washed a many loads of clothes by hand and we are thinking about going back to it as well it saves a lot of water and electric..
Now to the washing. We used those plastic tubs to wash our clothes in. And to rinse them in. We are lucky as we do have a wringer. HOwever it is still a lot of work getting those jeans and stuff. I will do a post in a few on handwashing clothes and show you all how we do it..
god bless
glenda

[nivek]

We have had some laundry discussions lately in the context of trying to become much less dependent on electricity. One of the things we looked at was a hand washer at Lehman's (link below). But, it is quite expensive, as much or more than a really nice electric washing machine as I recall. Perhaps it will far outlive an electric and be worth the expense in the end? Lehman's also sells wringers, etc. for doing laundry by hand.

www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=4084&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=673&iSubCat=674&iProductID=4084

Brother Kevin

[benshelpmeet]

Dear Bro Kevin,

I have found Lehman's to be too expensive, try looking on e-bay. Or just goggle wringer washers.

My friend did get a great clothesline for a ''good deal'' from Lehman's, you can add close line, we need 200 ft of line. I'm going to get this clothesline for our new house and string it from our porch to the corner of our barn. It will be up in the air overhead.

Here is the clothesline link:

www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=243&itemType=PRODUCT&iProductID=243

Here are some old posts you might glean some ideas from.

coveredbaptists.proboards31.com/index.cgi?board=animals&action=display&thread=1371

coveredbaptists.proboards31.com/index.cgi?board=animals&action=display&thread=1372

coveredbaptists.proboards31.com/index.cgi?board=animals&action=display&thread=1370

Our friend Boyd here in Tn, is going to give me a wringer washer he found, it is electric, but we know of some Amish who can convert them into non electric. I am excited about getting my wringer washer, it will save alot of water. On the topic of water, We have had an outhouse for over 11 years now. While shopping for toilets for our new home (we will have two bathrooms) I noticed that every time one flushes a commode it uses over 1 gallon of water. We had a deep outhouse dug (4'x8'x7' deep, it has a 5'x10' porch with a 4'x5' room closed in for the out house part, it even has a window!) at our new property so we will not have to walk to the house bathroom when were outside or at the barn. Ben says he wants us as a family to try and use the outhouse as much as possible to conserve water. We have a very nice outhouse, our Amish friends did not even know it was an outhouse, it looks more like a playhouse, it has a 5x6 porch with a bench seat that has a view down the side of our mountain. It's a beautiful private setting.

Bro Boyd is giving me his mothers treadle sewing machine, it works well and has all the bobbins, needles, scissors and patterns with it.

He is saving my treadle sewing machine and wringer washer until I get moved into my new house. I can hardly wait.

We are learning how to make alot of our cleaning supplies, Ben bought me a book called...''Green up your clean up''. It's a great book with plenty of recipes. I've been getting alot of earthy green books lately. They are helpful. It doesn't hurt for us to be responsible and not wasteful with our resources. It's kind of fun and rewarding knowing that your being fragile with what you have. I like the fact that I'm not putting alot of poisonous chemicals into our home and property. I am learning about all this, we are still too wasteful and we do still use chemicals like bleach, I'll find good alternatives in time, I buy my earth friendly cleaners but am going to start making my own, in time I will figure it all out.

At our new property we eventually want to go solar and well water (we have a spring coming out of our mountain.

Blessings to you as you find out ways to conserve electric!

~ sister Darlene ~

[mitchell]

Plain white VINEGAR is a good substitute for bleach. Chlorine fumes are so hard on our lungs and other delicate body systems. (You can just use the cheap variety of white vinegar for cleaning and save the good quality grain vinegar for use in cooking or for other uses where it comes in contact with the body. I put it in my washer in the wash cycle and then the rinse cycle rinses anything harmful out of it.) Vinegar kills all the germs that need killing unless you're rabid about germs.

I don't use vinegar in the kitchen too much (and when I do am very careful with it not to get it on my appliances - except for cleaning the coffeemaker). I stripped the numbers and letters off my old cookstove with diluted vinegar and water spray.

I do use vinegar and water spray in the bathroom to spray on the toilet seats and in the bottom of the tub (keeps down athlete's foot) and the lavatory between regular cleaning times. I do use cheap paper towels to dry off the vinegar/water spray.

Plain old baking soda is a real stain remover on counters and on the insides of coffee cups. I used to use Clorox on those, but the soda and a little scrub works just as well. Soda is also a good replacement for Comet and the like which will eventually pit your fixtures - I sometimes get BonAmi when I can find it as a replacement for Comet as BonAmi won't scratch.

I'm not a great housekeeper, but I manage to keep it fairly clean where the Health Dept. doesn't come out and condemn the place just using natural cleaners.

Ivory Liquid for dishes and also use it on my clothes as detergents make me itch all over - just two or three squirts out of the bottle and that does a load of my clothes well enough. I read somewhere that we all use too much soap in our clothes and that most of us could run clothes without soap once in a while and there would still be enough residual soap left in them to wash good enough.

Wanda

[glenda]

Around our home we use Vinegar just plain white, water, soap, borax, washing soda, baking soda, and a little elbow action and believe it or not you can clean everything with those things.
For clothes we make up our own powder washing powder by grading up bar soap fine add to that borax, washing soda, and baking soda.. I add to the rinse cycle plain old vinegar. It softens and well helps keep build up out of the washer.
For everything else I have a spray bottle with vinegar and water we use it for the bathrooms and counter tops. For the stove it is just plain old soap and water.. For the floors agian water and vinger. IT is cheap and well it cleans great..
If i need to scrub the tub or the sink i use a mixture of baking soda and borax.. I use it like commet.. Works great and you dont have to use as much..
For dusting i have some of those clothes that you can buy at the dollar tree. They pick up the dust. WE then just take them and throw them in the washer. It is like washing a wash rag.. I have two of them and we reuse them all the time..
For windows again vinegar water and newspapers.. Works great every time..
Base boards and window seals plain old soap and water..
Now my house is not perfect but i do keep a clean house. Everyone has a job to do and we try to not use anything that would hurt not only us but the world we live in..
Well that is my thoughts on cleaning
glenda