Mia who lives in a 11′ x 8′ travel trailer with her boyfriend Chris, the two travel the country 10 months out of the year performing at Renaissance festivals. They enjoy living the tiny lifestyle and soon want to upgrade to a full 20′ tiny house on wheels. Mia is currently designing her own home and has been greatly influenced by Jay Shafer’s Tumbleweeds.
Mia recently discovered this really cool, hand powered washing machine that fits under your sink. It isn’t available quite yet but is set to debut this year. It is made by RKS Designs and is called the Laundry POD. Greenupgrader.com says “The Laundry POD is an innovative little gadget perfect for dorms, apartments, camping or anyone looking to add a little green to their laundry bag.” You can learn more by visiting the RKS Designs website.
Update: Royal just sent me this link which tells much more about it. The Laundry POD will be available in the 3rd quarter of this year. Watch the demo of how it works at Laundry POD. Royal also just found this review, though I’m not sure how the person actually tried it out if it is not for sale yet. You can read it and decide if it is right for you. Review
When I first glanced at this post I hoped for pics of Mia and Chris’ Medieval trailer. Funny, I was thinking it would be great to take a trailer to Pennsic or something 🙂
But how is there room for sewing garb and crafting arms? Or do they have a home base?
Hi Janel, I am hoping to do a post covering them before to long. I believe they have a home base and do this 10 months out of the year. -Kent
Glad I am not the only one who sees these for Pennsic 😀
Neat, I could use one of those. I’ll have to read up on laundry detergent that is safe to pour on the lawn now.
It’s like a salad spinner. You have to do the spinning for the washing and rinsing yourself. It’s not bad. It really doesn’t take that much to wash clothes. I love small washers but I’ve noticed a lot of them don’t stand up to the test of time. I would be interested to re-review this a year after it has come on market.
A lot of people downsize their lives so they can have more time and money to spend on things they enjoy. I don’t know if this is a good product or not, but it is certainly an attempt to deal with a problem faced by many tiny housers. I don’t think anyone wants to spend the extra time and money at the laundramat.
Looks like a nice alternative to the Wonder Wash (small portable laundry that requires being spun in a circle on its base- best done in a tub! 🙂 )!
Great concept. I have used the wonderwash for about 6 months along with the larger spin dryer they have. I like the wonderwash and it gets clothes clean (working with hot water pressure), but after 6 months of experimenting have found that it is just as easy to use a 5 gallon bucket, letting them soak a bit, then agitating them with a “clean/new” toilet plunger. Also, the crank on the wonderwasher doesn’t seem to hold up well with use.
I wouldn’t want to part with the spin dryer, however. I love it and it gets the clothes almost dry so that if I hang them over night or just an hour or two on a hot deck or warm room, they are dry. Another trick I learned with the spin dryer is if you have clothes that you need to iron, iron them immediately after spin drying and you iron them dry without the need for steam. (So, it saves time and electricity in the wash, but some clothes will need to be (electric/time investment) ironed more than if they came out of a hot air dryer.)
This has potential for combining the wash and spin without the need for an electric spin-dryer. I’m not sure if it will hold up or work as well and whether the price (I checked and it’s now set at $99.00) is worth it, however. At any rate, using this type of laundering method encourages one to clean their clothes more frequently to avoid large piles of laundry. If laundry piles up, you might as well go to the laundry mat or do it in the bathtub with a larger spin dryer.
The 5 gal bucket/plunger method has worked well for me. But if your clothes are extra muddy or dirty, you need to do several rinsings first and then wash.
I haven’t figured out the drying part yet, except the good, old-fashioned outdoor evaporative drying that works so well down here in Texas almost year-round.
Back when I first moved out on my own, my grandfather, an auctioneer bought me at an auction a mini washer from about the 1950’s. The idea of smaller appliances has been around for year but really they keep getting better and better. If I ever get my chance to have a mini house myself, I am totally putting in the all in one washer/dryer unit sold by Camping World. Fits under a counter. And the small dishwashers. Total decadence in micro living.
Nothing beats a good washboard and bucket. Get more done and less waiting, and talk about green, no extra plastic has to be manufactured to accomplish what is already sitting in almost every hardware store or thrift shop. You can get a washboard for $15 and a bucket for $10 on the net. Some things we did back in the day were simple for a reason, because they were simple. And hey! You can play a little music on the thing on your next camping trip.
I have put in my time ripping my hands apart on a washboard. Thanks, but no. I admit to being a diva. I want a washer that can hold a few pants.
“And hey! You can play a little music on the thing on your next camping trip.”
Vintage Heavy Metal?!?
Beck. Where it’s At.
the washboard will wear holes in your clothes, this is why i wash my clothes in a frontloader or try 3 huge plastic tubs and a couple of new toilet bowl plungers if you dont have electricity.
IMHO, washing clothes with a washboard and bucket is not simple and it’s rough on the clothes. It’s a lot of hard work.
I find swooshing clothes around with my bare feet in a bathtub easier. Sink and hands work well, too. The main challenge is the weight of clothes when they are saturated with water after they are washed.
I had a hand wringer for a number of years and those suckers are a lot of work, too!
I confess, $1.25 at the laundramat and then hang drying over the heater at home in the winter, outside in summer, is my preferred mode these days. No new gadgets necessary.
I wouldn’t get any washer that didn’t COME WITH some kind of spin cycle. I don’t mind hanging clothes outside when it’s warm, and indoors when it’s cold, but I draw the line and hand wringing wet jeans.
Ever read Steinbeck’s “Travel’s With Charley”? Great book, and he talks about inadvertently stumbling up the “covered/soapy-bucket of water in a bouncy car-trunk” method- which I’ve since heard (from others) works well. Naturally, you’d have to change the water for a couple rinses….but other than that, with a larger load, and no machine, its very little work. Online there are a few cool plans for WWII-era wind-driven washers too- which look VERY simple to built (provided you live in an area with sufficent winds)
-Deek
Relaxshacks.com
How many pounds of clothes per gallon of gas does that washer get? How often do you need to replace the shocks?
I got an old hand wringer at a junk shop for $20 a few years ago, works great even though it had a vise grip handle for a while. I can live without a scrub board though! Those plunger/funnel thingies work great for washing in a tub or bucket but there is no way I put up with hand wringing. There is no laundromat on the island where my shack is so you need a friend with a washer or do your own somehow. It’s amazing how little laundry there is when you have to hand wash it, kind of like how little water you use if you have to carry it by the bucket load. If you wash the cleanest stuff first you can get two or three washes out of the same water, then use the rinse water for the next wash water, just like we did with the old wringer machines.
I’m afraid this device looks a bit fragile–plastic that wouldn’t necessarily hold up for long. For $20 you can get a “breathing washer” that will make the agitation easier in a bucket (better than a clean plunger, in fact): http://www.breathingwasher.com/index.htm
I agree a spin dryer would be a marvelous investment in a tiny home, too–and many will fit on a countertop just fine.
Looks pretty interesting, but way too small. I suppose these are meant for the occasional hand washer, when all one needs is a shirt or a pair of pants in between laundry days. I cannot see this for doing actual loads of laundry, and what about blankets, and bedding? How would they fit in that? I would imagine that one would spend more time washing several tiny loads, then just getting one big load over and done with.
I hate washing machines. I use two plastic sinks, one for washing one for rinsing, I agitate the clothes with a ‘Rapid Plunger’ I purchased from Lehman’s, and I wring the clothes out with a hand cranked wringer. Clothes come out clean and pressed (no ironing thanks to the wringer), and then line dry. I use a glass washboard for stains and really dirty items only (I wear dishwashing gloves which keep the washboard from removing the skin off of my fingers), but the rapid plunger does a great job for everything else. I do two rinses for each load, but save water buy using that second practically clean rise water for the next load.
It would drive me up the wall if I could only fit a couple of shirts or one pant in at a time.
I have been researching this, and though its neat-it sure is tiny! I found 2.5 and 5 gallon commercial salad spinners on Amazon that have the same hand-crank function and drain at the bottom. They are a little more that $99 but they are heavy duty and would fit a fair bit more clothing.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_24?url=search-alias%3Dgarden&field-keywords=commercial+salad+spinner&sprefix=commercial+salad+spinner&x=0&y=0
I think this is interesting-but I also like the “My Wave w Mini” available from Japan. It costs a little more, and is electric, but light weight.