5 gallon bucket, 1 inch hole in the lid, new plunger:

I used a setup like this for a year or so instead of getting a washer because it washes clothes so well and so quickly.

It turned from a workaround to the main way I washed my clothes for that year.

You can drill a few holes in the plunger rubber for extra water flow.

I did this for a long time too when money was a problem.

You can do laundry in the bathtub with a toilet plunger. Make sure everything is submerged, let it soak a long time, make the detergent do most of the work. Like an hour of soaking. Then use the plunger to force water through all the fabric. Then drain. Then rinse with fresh water to get rid of soap residue. Then hang to dry.

After that I bought a small washing machine intended for RVs. Was around 80EUR, no idea what that would cost today.

I grew up when my grandmother was still hand washing and using a wringer, they had gas fireplaces so they put the damp clothes on a clothes horse by a fire or in a warm room.

Bathtub works, fill with hot / warm water as needed and buy a detergent meant to dissolve for easy hand washing. Borax was often used to boost cleaning. You can pretreat stained areas with various cleaners, but borax pasted onto the wet area and rubbing the fabric face together on itself with two hands works. Its how you’d do collars and armpits too. Basically swish them around like the agitator did in the old style washers. Rub areas together with other fabric that you know need extra cleaning. Its about getting water to pass through and physical abrasion, and soaking to let soap attach and breakdown oils etc.

Rinse everything well after the wash part. Modern soaps for HE machines take forever to rinse, the non HE soaps may work better, ifbyou can’t find a good washing powder or liquid.

Then wring each normal item it by holding two ends and twisting it, and twisting it, it will self squeeze the water out as it tightens up like a rope. Don’t do this with delicate fabrics.

I have seen old roller wringers at the thrift store, you feed the clothes in and wind the handle and it squeezes the water out as it flattens you laundry.

Then hang to dry. Dry air helps, but if you have a fan you can blow air across stuff for quicker evaporation.

Just wash it?

Ok, you asked how. Inspect the clothes whether there are any stains on them that ought to be pre-treated. Especially blood is important – never ever treat blood stains with anything but cold water and a lot of soaking time. Hot water and chemical agents will burst the erythrocytes, and the hemoglobin will bind to the fibres. You’ll have to bleach the cloth to have a chance get rid of the stain. Cold water will just dissolve the blood cells, and the stain is gone for good. For other stains, consult the search engine or AI oracle of your choice.

For the actual washing, you’ll need some kind of detergent and warm water. 30–40° C (about 90–110° F, I suppose) is hot enough, so as long as you’ve got hot water from the tap, just use that – as hot as you can comfortably stick your hand in. Let chemistry do the grunt work by letting the clothes soak for about an hour in water + detergent. Then take them out of the water and press the water out of them – there are a few techniques to do these, like wringing, twisting and paddeling (yep, paddles are originally washing tools, not torture implements). Repeat a couple of times. It might be necessary to change the water if it gets too dirty. Inspect the clothes and treat remaining stains by applying detergent and rubbing them – in former times they used a special washboard, but without one, I’m just rubbing cloth on cloth or use a brush.

Without a centrifuge, it’s pretty hard to get the water out of the clothes. Hand washed clothes will stay pretty wet. Washing just one or two items outside, I’ve got good results by swirling the cloth around with an arm, but that’s not feasible inside or with more than one or two items. You’ll have to hung them on a washing line as wet as they are. Be prepared - depending on your climate, they’ll be dry within no time or two days. If you get a lot of sun, consider to protect your clothes from it - sun’s UV + water produces Ozone, which bleaches everything. That’s the cheapest way to bleach stuff, by the way - just lay the wet cloth in the sun. If you have to hang your clothes indoor, be aware that there is a lot of water in them - if you have to regularily dry clothes indoors, you will get problems with mold, unless you air your dwelling religiously - or live in a very bad insulated building or somewhere where they’ve got these air conditioning thingies. Air drying your clothes will let them pretty stiff and wrinkly compared to dryer drying them, an iron is your friend if that’s too much for you.

Take care of your hands - manual washing wreaks your skin. Use skin cream before and after.

Milk takes out blood stains. Baking soda helps soap clean, white vinegar in rinse helps break up suds and soften.

https://laundrytowear.com/how-to-wash-clothes-without-a-washer/

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home-products/g64353377/best-clothes-drying-rack/

Do not dry clothes in the oven! Hang them up to dry after squeezing out as much water as you can.

There is this fantastic nineteenth century tech that i came across, which i think could be improved upon by using lightweight modern carbon stuff, like in a bicycle. It is a laundery wringer. You attatch them to a bucket, and then you place your wet laundery in them and use a crank. It must be of such length that the process does not become toilsome. It removes 95% of all water. Then they hung up the laundery in those days when they were in use, and they dried much quicker. If mass produced, students could just have one under the bed, and fetch it when needed. The problem is that those i see are too expensive and in steel, which means heavy and cumbersome. If Musk could ditch this pointless and overly expensive migration plan to Mars, he could solve this high-tech issue and have them sold at low cost to students?

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