I bought a Laundry Pod.

I’ve been living in an RV for a while now. I was originally in my vintage Airstream part time while I was working, and I would go home on weekends. Last year, we sold the house, and we bought a much larger toy hauler fifth wheel RV, and Matt is now enjoying tiny house living as well. We really love it. We live in an RV park, which is a tiny gated community, with a pool, spa, rec center and on site laundry. You know when you were a kid and you went on holidays to the caravan park, and how you could just relax and enjoy life, and you didn’t have to mow lawns, or clean the pool, or do any hard work, you just sat around playing with the other kids, and life was awesome? Well, it’s basically that. Except we’re adults, and we drink and BBQ with the other adults. (And no, it’s not a trailer park. There’s one of those down the street.)

The only thing I don’t love about the RV is doing laundry. We actually have a space in the RV for a washer/dryer combo unit, but we’d prefer to have the closet space. Besides, the RV park has a coin laundry. It’s not so bad in summer, when it’s just the other full timers who live here, plus, you know, people who are vacationing, but in winter, it’s crazy busy. (We’re in South Texas, and in winter all the Yankees flock to the South to get away from the cold. We call them Winter Texans, or Snow Birds.) Anyway,  there’s 4 washers, and 6 dryers in the laundry room. When Matt and I go away, we generate a fair bit of laundry, but I only ever do 2 loads at a time, because I don’t want to be that asshole that hogs all the machines. Without fail though, every time I go down there, there’s an old lady who is on her phone, slowly spraying all the delicates, and hogging all four machines. It’s become a running joke. Then you have to trek up and down the park, waiting to put your laundry in. Then walk back down again to move it over, then come pick it up. I normally walk. Matt hops on the John Deere gator to go down there…. (It’s more fun than a golf cart 😉 )

I love the tiny house movement, and all the efforts people make to downsize, make a smaller footprint, and generally go green. Most of my clothes I hand wash anyway, so I decided to get a laundry pod. I’d seen quite a few different little off grid washing machines online, but this looked like the easiest to use.

I was super excited when it arrived today. (I had ordered it online) I had just put two loads in at the laundry when it arrived. It was Matt’s cargo shorts and the towels, so not stuff I would wash in the pod, but I opened it up right away and did a couple of loads of my own clothes to try it out. I’m a fan of the Meyers Clean Day laundry soaps, especially after the owner of the park said she always knows when I’m doing laundry because the scent goes upstairs. (Thankfully she said it was a good smell!) The small bottle is easy to store in our tiny space too. It’s not super sudsy, and does handwashing very nicely, without leaving a bunch of residue.

So basically, the Laundry Pod is like a giant salad spinner. I put the soap in, added some water, added the clothes, some more water to make sure they were covered, and gave it a spin. I let the clothes soak for a while, then gave it another spin. It’s kind of a workout, and if you spin for long enough, it’s like doing cardio. When you think they’re done, turn the knob on the bottom, and water flows out of the hose, which comes out from underneath. You can tuck it away when you’re not using it. Then, add a little bit more water to rinse. Spin again, open drain, and then spin like crazy to get all the water out. Just like the spin cycle on a regular washing machine.

I hung my clothes on one of those folding clothes dryer racks. Thankfully, I can set it up behind one of the RV slideouts so nobody else can see my laundry. The other cool thing about being in a toy hauler RV is I can put the rack back there in the garage to dry clothes even in the rain.

I wouldn’t say it was easier than washing and drying clothes in the regular laundry, but it did mean I could gently wash all my clothes and hang them to dry like I prefer to do anyway. I’ll probably still do most of Matt’s clothes, and of course the sheets and towels down there. But at least for my clothes, I’ll be saving a shit tonne of water. I only used a couple gallons of water to do a load. Apparently a regular machine can use 30 gallons of water for a load. That’s a crazy amount of water. I tried it out today in my tub, but I could also do it outside and use the grey water on my plants. So double green points. It also saves me some green. Doing laundry is expensive. It’s $1.25 a wash, and another $1.25 to dry. With this, I don’t even pay for electricity. Just the water I need to quench my thirst afterwards! (and the small amount of water for washing)

It’s probably not practical for large households, but if you’re like me, and doing the tiny living thing, or need something for camping, your holiday house, or the inevitable zombie apocalypse when we all have to go off grid, this seems like a pretty useful little gadget. It’s small enough for apartments and dorms, and probably even people fulltiming on boats. I’ll have to do laundry more often, instead of letting a whole pile of clothes build up, but that’s ok. I need to cull a bunch of my wardrobe anyway.

I know, I’m easily amused, but it’s always the small stuff that makes me happy.