Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Keeping Clothes Clean in A SHTF Scenario

Clean clothes keeps you warm better, feels nicer, and don't assault your sense of smell. At our home, we have made our own dry laundry detergent (LINK) for some time, and all the ingredients will keep for a long time. Keeping the three ingredients from the humidity, and moisture would be your primary concern for long term storage.

from raisinglittletreasures.com

Let's face it. Laundry will be a chore that no one wants to do because of the time and labor involved. I've seen a low tech solutions where a five gallon bucket is used with a plunger (unused!). (LINK) A hole just big enough for the handle of the plunger to go through the top of the bucket lets the person agitate the clothes without losing the bulk of the detergent water. Another bucket of rinse water, actually probably a few, will help rinse the clothes.

The clothes can be hung really wet, and air dried for a long time, rung with a ringer, or a DIY wringer using 5 gallon buckets can be used. I haven't tried it myself but thought it was a genius solution. The laundry person sits on the buckets to force the water out of the clothes while plunging the next "load". (LINK)

Another low tech solution for when things go wrong.

Keep Right On Prepping - K  

2 comments:

  1. Well really from spending weeks in period encampments from my re-enacting days we used to use the bucket method. Mostly I found unless your clothes were really dirty they could be washed sufficiently just by hand in the bucket without the plunger thing. A small washboard that will fit in the bucket is also very handy and far more effective too.

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    1. As a personal chore, your system would work well. I'm thinking of getting the laundry done for a group of people. After an hour of washing clothes, I'm sure that the hands would be sore.

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