The Washtub

Photo courtesy Flickr

Long ago over a glass of gin, the mother of a good friend waxed nostalgic about her twin tub washer, a brand called “Easy”. My mentor could have had any appliance she wanted, or she could have hired someone to do the work, but she chose to wash laundry for a family of six with a machine that required her to lift wet clothes out of a tub of soapy water and into a centrifuge at the side. A twin-tub rewards hand-on effort with huge economies in water, detergent, and energy.

Thanks to my mentor’s advice, I’ve owned two such machines. The first taught me that it was a pain in the neck to handle wet clothes, and I switched to a small automatic after a few years. Three automatics and an empty nest later, I switched back to a twin-tub, and I’m happy with the change.

The new machine is far lighter and better-designed than my first vintage one. I had it shipped to the nearest freight concierge office, collecting it on foot with a hand truck a few days after I called in the order. These little machines are popular in the desert and in the bush because they use so little water.

It took a few weeks of grousing about handling wet clothes for me to realize that a twin-tub is not an inferior washing machine: it is a very superior washtub. I can run loads of clothes through it in their order of soil and fill the machine once where previously I might have filled three or four times. The centrifuge is more efficient than an automatic spin cycle, and I can direct used water back into the tub.

A long final spin will get things dry enough to wear, if I don’t mind a brief chill. A folding drying rack or set of plastic hangers will finish drying with no additional carbon load. Line dried clothes last at least five times as long as ones that are dried by machine. Textiles are hard on the environment, so this economy pays off in ways that are not obvious.