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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) 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 FrugalFor other soap recipes, try About that (Frugal) Laundry DetergentFor 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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