Somehow or another Wifey and I got to talking about laundry in the context of preparedness about a month ago. I vaguely recalled a guest post on laundry by our pal Sam in the trailer park which has successfully evaded a tornado so I searched till I found it. I got to fiddling around on the Emergency Essentials website and came across the Wonder Washer. Wifey did some research and this seemed like a quality product which fit our needs.
This brings us to a very valuable micro (or small or even big I guess) business lesson. If there is some sort of deal you would like to make always ask. I am not going to even guess what percentage of the time you will get an unexpected "yes" but I can say if you don't ask the "no" rate is 100 percent. Anyway I wrote the folks at Emergency Essentials and they have an ad on our site and I have a Wonder Washer. It came in the mail earlier this week and I just got to really fiddling with it today.
"Assembly" is quite simple. Take the handle and put it onto the square post that sticks out of the side. The directions are pretty simple and take up just part of a standard piece of paper. I decided to test it out by washing a few random pieces of clothing; a pair of shorts and two shirts to be exact. Onto the review.
The Good:
1. It works
2. It is readily affordable
3. Quite easy to use. Just put the clothes, deturgent and water in, screw the lid on and then turn the handle which rotates the unit around in the frame washing your clothes.
4. Pretty compact, about the size of a normal BBQ propane tank
The Bad:
1. The lid seems sort of touchy. You have to get the grooves in the lid to match up with the grooves in the unit and then rotate it till the thing locks into place. Then you have to tighten the lid down with the hand screw on top.
2. If you do not get the lid all the way tight it will spill water while you "wash". Not a big deal, just screw it down until it pretty much won't screw on any more (no visible threads).
3. I followed the directions but the amount of detergent needed seemed a bit too high. I had to really rinse the clothes to get them non soapy. Not a big deal if you are rinsing with warm water in the sink but if water conservation was important it might be. Next time I will use more like 2/3rds of what is advised.
The Ugly:
The part I found most disappointing was that the unit seemed to bounce around as you turn it. The frame is small and narrow while the washer thingie is relatively big and heavy. In order to wash I basically had it on the floor with one knee on the near side of the frame and my spare hand on the other side. If I were to be doing a lot of laundry with the Wonder Washer I would look to clamp it to a table or something so it would be a one handed operation.
All in all I found this unit to be simple, affordable and useful. Sure beats the heck out of dragging our laundry to the river to bang it on some rocks. If we planned to do laundry for a family of 6 on a normal basis then some sort of bigger and more complex washer would be worth procuring. However to just wash an outfit at a time or for emergency use this fits the bill perfectly. We could do some sort of home rigged thing but with the Wonder Washer at the very reasonable price of $49.99 I see no reason to bother. We do need to pick up a mop wringer to help with getting the water out of our clothes after washing but that is an easy fix.
Also included was an Emergency Essentials catalog. They have some really cool stuff so please go check it out.
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6 comments:
Advice (take it or leave it, lol): Try 1/4 c. (or 1/4 detergent period). Suds don't equal cleaner, for what it's worth.
Also, those big plastic totes, a plunger (or a heavy duty dow rod) and some arm power work great in a pinch. Spent a week over the summer when the oldest screamer was still in diapers doing them that way. Didn't hurt that they were the traditional, ol' fashioned flats that washed up and dried (on the line) in less than an hour total.
Just a thought for those that can't/won't fork over the $$ for the washer, though it is rather spiffy looking!
How long did it take? And can you give us a feel for how much clothes it would hold?
Is it big enough for two pairs of underwear and a pair of socks, or 3 pants, 3 shirts and a sweater?
Jess, Tis true. Though if you are buying the buckets and such me thinks the cost isn't that much lower.
Chief Instructor, Time for washing is quite quick at about a minute for a small load and 2 for a larger one. The quantity chart says it can hold 5lbs of clothes which is roughly 10 (t?) shirts or two pair of jeans.
I imagine doing a load of a couple pair of socks n underoos as well as 1 each of pants, t shirt and over shirt (not the real heavy winter flannel type) would be realistic.
I and other soldiers have used a twenty mikemike can to clean our clothes with when we were on a FOB with over 2000 personnel and only a hand full of washers, let alone the water restrictions that were in place. You need very little water when using a ammo can due to the pressure that the soap suds create which helps in forcing the dirt out of the fibers, and we would use Dawn dish washing detergent instead of laundry detergent. Oh, by the way, you use very little Dawn or you will need a lot of water for rinsing.
I love their stuff, that's who I buy our freeze dried food stuffs from. We also have a hand crank radio from them and a bunch of the emergency ration bars. They do a special every month for bulk buys, and their service has always been fast for me.
If you use the HO style detergent (it is low-sud for European style front-end loaders) you will not need to rinse as much.
A really good squeezing rinse is worth an awful lot of spin cycles. Having a low sud detergent just makes it easier. But dish soap or even hand soap will certainly work in a pinch when hand washing.
Hand washing in a bath tub (if you watch your color mix-bleeds), a good wringing, and line drying is not all that time consuming.
The part I really hate is folding.
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