What have you done today to lower your impact?

We are washing away the foundations of our existence on every front. It is high time we move from crashing about on the planet like a bull in china shop and find a way to go forward with intent. We must find systems of living based on sustainability. The systems and tools exist, it is up to each of us to adopt them.

Blog Archive

Monday 31 May 2010

The Autorockawasher 5000

A few posts ago I told you about my plunger and bucket low tech washing machine. Well, contain your excitement, there has been a major upgrade to the technology. I was doing extra wash today, it's raining so I get the wash water for free and I get an extra rinse just by hanging the clothes on the line, and I figured I'd put into action a plan that has been percolating in my brain for about week. I mentioned it to my nephew last monday as a joke. Today I thought that if I've got all this extra plunging to do I might as well try it.

 I just attached the plunger to the back of my porch rocker and raised the bucket about 6" off the floor. I spend at least an hour a day in that rocker; first thing in the morning I watch the sun come up with my first cup of tea of the day, mid morning tea break, mid afternoon tea break, and we often have high level household business meetings on the porch. This means I can do the wash at the same time without getting out of my rocker! No power cost, no water cost (as long as I use rainwater), and I get a little rest. Who could ask for more?

2 comments:

Carrie said...

This is so ingenious! And I thought my husband won the inventive-sustainability award! I can't wait until he gets home to show him this. We'll have to give it a try!

C Robb said...

Cool,
Let me know if he comes up with an improvement. The plunger is limited in it's ability to agitate sufficiently, I think a mechanism that rocks the bucket at the same time might help.