Cob: Re: Washing Machines

[Mark Piepkorn]

At 09:32 PM 2/21/2003, Amanda Peck wrote:
>Lehman's used to carry the James washing machine--couldn't find it in a 
>couple of pages of a google search.


         I got one of those a few years back, paid too much. (Not that I 
was dissatisfied with the product - it just cost too much.) (After it 
arrived, I tracked down the manufacturer and found that they made the 
washers in the off-season... when they weren't busy making wheel wells for 
high-end RVs. I thought it was a weird and somehow fitting symbiosis.) I 
used it for two years in New Mexico, and plan on using it again when we're 
living in something more than 220 square feet surrounded by interminable 
subfreezing temperatures. Frankly, it didn't do that great of a job against 
that weird red Martianlike dirt they've got down there... but neither did 
motorized machines. Good thing I'm not very fussy about what I wear. As 
long as it doesn't stink or cling and I'm not afraid to wipe my hands on 'em.



>The pressure kind that I do have isn't easy to come by any more


         Is that one of those plastic-rotating-ball-ones? I married into 
one of those. (She had it before I met her.) It's little, doesn't do enough 
at a time to suit me, and she feels like it doesn't really get things as 
clean as a motorized machine. Again, not being as fussy about apparent 
cleanliness, I didn't have a problem with it in that regard when I tried it 
out for a while. Hers doesn't have a drain, though, which later ones did, 
and it would be nice to have. I could install one if she'd let me.



>http://www.wisementrading.com/washing.htm


         Yes! These wonderful things still pop up occasionally at yard 
sales and used-stuff stores, and nobody ever knows what they are. I haven't 
used one, though I always washed my clothes with a standard rubber plunger 
in a bathtub back in Minnesota. Worked fine for me.



         One thing we haven't tried but intend to when it's warmer, now 
that we've obtained the five-gallon plastic buckets (with lids) to do it, 
is putting the laundry in those buckets and putting those buckets on the 
back of the pickup. Let 'em soak overnight (presoaking always helps), 
drain, add warm slightly-soapy water and drive into town to do town chores 
while the clothes agitate over every bump and turn. Rinse and hang when we 
get home.

         Agh! What a HUGE difference between places like Minnesota and 
Maryland and New York as compared to New Mexico: in the southwest, 
dripping-wet un-wrung clothes will be *totally dry* in a couple hours. 
Everywhere else I've lived, that kind of thing takes forEVER. I loathe 
hand-wringing clothes; the hand-cranked wringer I got with the James washer 
is one of the best things ever.