Washing Day - By Hand Of Course

Posted by The Survival Center on 16th Jan 2017

Greetings,

If you have been prepping for a while you probably thought of the food, the water filter and maybe how to store your water and some first aid supplies, but have you thought about how you will wash your clothes?

Do you have some laundry soap stored ahead?

How about tubs or buckets where you could wash it in? You will need 2 containers minimum.

You will need to be able to heat some water for the washing. Dirt is being released easier in warm water and it makes the soap more effective.

You could heat the water on a wood stove, propane stove or over a campfire that has a sturdy tripod over it to hold the pot and water, or even a few concrete blocks with a metal plate over the fire where your water container will sit while acting like a big hot plate.

Once you have added the clothes to the soapy water you can stir it with a stick or agitate by hand. If there are more serious stains on the clothes, a wash board may come in handy to scrub a bit harder.

You will need one or more tubs/ buckets filled with clean water for rinsing. Depending on how much soap you used and how many clothes you are washing, you may have to rinse several times.

Now comes the use your muscles part:

You will want to squeeze out as much water from the clothes/ fabric as possible so it will dry faster.

If you have nothing but your hands you will start squeezing and twisting the fabric to get the water out. Two people, one on each end of the cloth will help,

However, If you have more than one person in your household, the doing it by hand is going to “get old” really fast.

A Hand Clothes Wringer will definitely save the day. It can be attached to a bucket or tub.

You feed the fabric into the rollers, while turning the handle and the pressure of the rollers squeezes out the water.

When you are done with it hang it on your clothes line with Clothes pins.

Yes you will need to have some of those around too.

Hang the clothes line between trees or buildings. In rainy weather have some clothes line handy to hang in the garage or in the house, preferable near a heat source like a wood stove.

If you haven't planned for washing by hand yet, here is the summary of items you want to acquire: