Hand Powdered Washing Machine

I know I have been talking about it for a while now so I finally got around to starting my Old Fashioned Solar Laundry Room with a Modern Day Redneck Twist.

(By the way, how do you like my shade tree shop)

First off is building the Washing Machine. I picked up two 30 gallon plastic drums from a buddy of mine and cut them in half  3" above center.
Then I built a stand to hold both barrels out of scavenged 2X4's and placed the wringer right in the middle between the two.

The side to the right of the wringer will be the wash tub and the left side is the rinse side.
The wringer has fins so whatever way you crank it the water will run back into that tub.

I did as much as I could with wood before heading over to my dad's metal shop to fabricate the pieces that will hold the lever and the plungers all together. All from scavenged material.    

After it was most of the way assembled it was time to eat so I will finish it another day.
The plungers will hang from the Black Smith made "U" brackets that are attached to the handle. They will hang from All-thread and the plungers will be made from stacks of different diameters of wood about 6" thick, you will just have to see it when it's done. It's pictured in my head and hard to explain.

I still need to install the drains and set it in place. The water source will be from the rainwater storage units which is pumped through the Solar Bath house so I can have hot water on demand.

Speaking of which, I need a shower. Y'all have a great week.

Whoa There Big Fella

I don't know what happen, but I went from overdrive to first gear in one week.
This weekend I absolutely did nothing to write home about. It seemed like everything was in slow motion when I was trying to do it.

My Boppy

Saturday morning I did get the chance to do a little fishing. Of course I was out fished by my daughters like always but never the less I went. Boppy, my middle girl, caught the biggest and Wee, my youngest, tied with Boppy on how many. I came in last place with catching only one.
It's okay, at least I went. I could have sat out there all day and it didn't matter if I got a bite or not as long as I was with them.
The rest of the day I spent with the girls just being there.



Sunday, today, was a different story. I got up chomping at the bits to get something done.
I tried, but the harder I worked the less was getting done so I just slowed down and went at a nice slow pace.

After getting some odds and ends done I decided to turn my focus on the Rain Water Solar System. I mounted the solar panel on the housing box and plumbed in the "on demand pump". I also went ahead and wired in all the DC electrical stuff to go with it.
Everything runs off a switch. Flip that switch over at the bath house and the pump comes on to 45 psi and shuts off. Every time you turn the water on either in the bathhouse or the gardens the pump kicks back on.

The one thing I should have done was plumbed in two union fittings so when the pump has to be replaced it will not be such an ordeal to do it. I just got antsy and went with what I had.

I plan to add two more solar panels and two more batteries in the future.

This is just a quick set up to see if everything was wired right. The leads from the battery (Not shown here) plug into the outlet, energizing the switch to turn the pump on.
Very simple design I thought of here.


If you have not been reading, all this is for the rain water harvesting system. This will pump the water out of the two 1500 gallon tanks and into the gardens and bath house.
Oh, I almost forgot. The Verde River Citizens Alliance is using my Rain Water Harvesting System design for their Back Yard Garden Expo. I am pretty excited about that.  

I got bored today and decided to also go ahead and start on the Solar Laundry Room.
I got the floor completed and now I am thinking on how exactly I am going to do this.
My question is, do I want to try and run everything off of DC solar power or run everything like the old days where it was all manual labor. I have not figured it out yet.