Off Grid Laundry

There are many ways to do laundry when you live off grid. In our first off grid home we paid to have our laundry done for us by a laundromat. It was cheap enough and we both had jobs that required working 6 days a week plus we drove 3 hours a day to get to and from work. I have no idea how much that service would cost nowadays. 

We live and work differently now. Our solar system is a lot more advanced than our first system. There are more options now than there were back then. With that being said, we still have situations that cause us to use different options at different times for different reasons.

During really cold cold Winters everything freezes. Water lines and septic lines freeze. Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. This is the worse case scenario. We can be drifted in or out of our water source depending on how you look at it. This makes us step up our water conservation efforts. If this happens we utilize options 2 and 3. 

Option 1: We have a small front loading washer/dryer combo. We use this option most of the time. We do not use the dryer except on rare occasions. We hang our clothes on a clothesline and use a drying rack to dry our clothes. 

Option 2: We have a non-electric portable washing machine. It's called a WonderWash. This is a cool little machine that does a great job washing clothes. It does not wring out the clothes. I use the spin cycle on my washing machine to spin the clothes. 

Option 3: Washing laundry at the laundromat. We have used this option if there is too much laundry. We try to keep up on laundry. It's physically demanding and hard for me to do.

Option 4: Hand Washing. This is by far the hardest way to do laundry. On a small scale it's doable for items that require hand washing, but while doing all laundry by hand is doable it is not physically possible for me to attempt unless it was my only option. Number One would have to do it and I would help.

This is our Wonder Wash. You can use hot or cold water. If hot water is used the pressure builds up inside and gets the clothes mighty clean. 

For the most part, it is the cold brutal weather that keeps us from doing laundry in our washing machine. It does not happen all the time, but it has happened. We have had to get creative and resourceful. This year the lack of snow may be our enemy. Snow insulates the water and septic lines. It is December and we don't have any at all. What we had on Thanksgiving has melted. We were spared the effects of the drought throughout the Summer in our area, but we are feeling it now. Without the snowpack we will be in dire straits soon.

Mrs. Smith