Best washing machines for really off grid

[Ralph Day]

Check out the number of machines and the complexity of engineering. Would any of us want to manually wash clothes?

It's as off grid as you can get...mostly from before the grid.

http://www.flixya.com/video/4752792/Washing-Machine-Museum-manual-machines

Ralph

[Joe Blake]

Some interesting thoughts put into action ...

I bought one of these in 1980 ...

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/wp-content/uploads/wonderwash.png

(though it was a Bamix name then) and replaced it about 2 years ago.

I don't use it for all my washing, but for smaller loads and I'm in a hurry (incredibly quick) I'll use this. It has a pressurised tank and the high pressure generated by the hot water forces the soapy water right into the fabric.

I needed to complement this with a non-electric spin drier, and a couple of years ago I came across this in a hardware shop. It only does a couple of T-shirts at one go but it actually works.

If the grid goes down I'm pretty well set. :D

Joe

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/Mzk1WDQ1MA==/z/~20AAOxyJ8ZRh7lC/$T2eC16ZHJIQE9qUHuEMlBRh7lCC5+g~~60_12.JPG

[Ralph Day]

How about a salad spin type dryer? For those little loads.

\Ralph

[Marvin jordan]

Haha best machine is at the shop of corner of road :)

[Rebecca Barnfield]

That was nice washing machine. I just used Whirlpool brand.

[Brian McGowan]

I have a LG front loader. It uses 1/3 the water and 1/5 the power of the top loader it replaced. I regularly run it from my little renewable energy system. I forget the specifics of how much power it uses to do a load but I did actually measure it and can again if someone is interested.

[Sean D'Epagnier]

I often can find people who hand-wash my clothes for free. Otherwise it's 50 cents a kilo.

From a boat while sailing, it's possible to drag clothes in the sea to wash, then hang in the rain to rinse. This can probably work in waterfalls, but I never tried.

Could probably put clothes in a sealed drum with soap, then anchor the drum in the breakers. Maybe could put fins on the outside of the drum to make it spin (and have lines from either end on bearings going to the anchor) If you did it right, you wouldn't even have to get wet as you set it at low tide and come back at the next low tide.

Another idea.. maybe it's possible to hang the clothes exposed to gale-force winds which would flog them clean.

For more conventional, wouldn't it be possible to adapt a normal washing machine to be pedal powered? Would only need to pedal 20 minutes or so to do a load, not bad. Obviously this could also be connected directly to wind/hydro sources without using electricity.

What I do is wear the same clothes for at least a few days sometimes a week or more, so it takes at least a few months before I need to wash them.