Have you ever owned a portable clothes washer?

[ctmom05]

Our youngest recently moved into a mobile home. This was a good move for him.

We were thinking of getting him a portable clothes washer, which is the only kind the mh can accomodate. All my life I have had full-sized machines and am not at all familiar with portables.

I am sure there are pros and cons to everything. I would love to get some feedback from folks who have owned a portable washer.

 

[donna723]

Why can't he use a full sized washer in a mobile home?

I've never had any experience with a "portable" washer ... but my problem has always been that my house is 160 years old and has very narrow interior doorways. When I moved in to this house they had to take part of the door framing off to get my washer through the inside doors! It was an old one and when it suddenly died between paydays I ended up buying another used one, but it's not all that old. It's a Kenmore. What I really liked about it though is that it's only 24" wide! It fit right through my narrow doorways - no problem! It was part of a set but I didn't need the dryer. It still holds a full load of laundry though because the tub is very deep. Something like that would be great for a mobile home as long as it has washer connections.

 

[ctmom05]

Donna,

My son is renting the mobile home, and it does not have washer hookups.

There is a nicely constructed clothes line outside, so my guess is that the previous tenant dried clothes outside and used a porta-washer.

 

[Marguerite]

There's the old fashioned method of beating the clothes with rocks down by the riverbank...

We travelled overseas on the cheap and found no washing facilities anywhere, so we used the bathtub and threw the kids in on top to do the "grape stomp". We had a small clothes rack which we put on a sunny balcony for drying.

Other things I've seen - there was a small portable washer I remember seeing, it was like a canister which you screwed down (a bit like a large thermos flask) and then you turned the whole thing with a handle. Apparently this agitated the wash and also built up pressure inside, which forced the dirt out of the clothing. Although it was so small they showed how you could wash two double sheets in there in one go. It had a rubber gasket to stop it leaking, you had to open it carefully because of the bit of pressure, but it seemed to do a good job. I think it might have been made by Husqvarna, I'm not sure.

And another I've see, courtesy of Nimbin (Australia's answer to Woodstock) - in the hippy commune for alternative lifestyle people, one bloke invented a pedal-powered washing machine using a discarded exercise bike and a plastic garbage bin. He hooked the bike up to the bin so that as he pedalled, the bin got shaken around. He would undo the bin lid, put in the clothes, some water and some washing powder, then clamp the lid back on and pedal. That way he said he got exercise as well as clean clothes!

I hope that helps.

Marg

 

[witzend]

We had one years ago, and it worked like a gem. You hook it up to the sink the same way you would a portable dishwasher. We also had a portable dryer that sat on a stand that you could roll the washer underneath when not in use. The problem with the dryer was moisture. It really gets the house damp because it doesn't vent outside, and you can have mildew problems. There is probably a way to hook up a vent pipe and shove it out the window these days.