Laundry was my first real household chore, beyond feeding the dog, washing the dishes, and keeping my own room in order. It became mine when my mother opened her hair dressing salon, which brought in several loads of small white towels every week. For about six months, I rolled an old fashioned grocery cart down the road to the Laundromat and sat for several hours with a book while the machines churned away at the five loads. I loved it. I could read or people watch. But, as the towel piles grew, we needed a new system. My mother bought a dryer, which she set up in her bedroom, and an ancient wringer washing machine. The thing was dangerous! If you were not careful with the wringer, buttons went flying and there were rumors of smashed fingers. But there was a rhythm to the process—hot water for washing whites, followed by colored clothes because the water had cooled, then a rinse cycle where I reloaded the whites, then the colored, followed by washing the really dirty work clothes in the rinse water. I hauled the sheets and our clothes out to the lines and devised ways to fold sheets neatly while still hanging up. It was an adult accomplishment.
When we moved into our house, there were two sets of washers and dryers—one installed in the basement and one stored in the garage. We hauled the garage set away. The basement washer was avocado green, solid as a rock, and huge. I caught the greywater in a 55 gallon drum and pumped it up to water my newly established perennials and I had to watch it closely if I did more than two loads. When it finally died, we replaced it with a very efficient front loader which used half the water and worked about half as well on really dirty clothes. The dryer was from the 1950s. When a part burned out, Mark replaced it. When it happened again a couple of months later, we bought another wooden drying rack and unplugged it forever. It was hauled away with the avocado green washer.
Having just a washer, no dryer, has worked well for us. For long stretches of the year, we can hang everything out. In winter, we use the drying racks and the rafters over the wood stove in the dining room. We held onto sheets and towels, doing huge loads on the mid-winter days when it is bright and sunny. If they did not appear, Mark hauled the sheets down to the laundromat at the end of the street and did a massive wash and dry. He brought a book, read, and enjoyed the time. We ran loads of laundry at the same time as house cleaning, once a week.
A few months ago, the washer died for the third time. Last time, the repairman had to dig the part out from a dark corner of his van, because the model is now obsolete. “I don’t know if we can fix it again,” he muttered to Mark. Neither of them were happy with the thought. “It’s not that old,” we complained. Because it died on a Saturday morning and we needed clean underwear, Mark loaded up the laundry duffel and rode the load down the street. He came back less than an hour later, quite chirked up. The new remodel they completed during the pandemic was great, he reported. New, big machines, that were highly efficient. The spin cycle pulled almost all of the water out of our clothes, even better than our machine downstairs. It was like….Denmark. We hung up the clothes. He was right. They dried faster. Why buy a new washer?
And so, here we are, full circle, back at the laundromat. We still hang our stuff up at home, but the washers are great and our clothes are cleaner. Is it, overall, more energy efficient? We are using a communal machine, rather than replacing our own. That counts for a lot. The water heater there has to be better than ours. We are using less water. When we dry the sheets, it is faster and the heat from the machine heats the building, not the outside air. And it is faster—all of the wash is done at once, in 47 minutes, rather than over the course of the morning. We could do the calculations, but, so far, it is working.
