WonderWash Portable Washing Machine for Apartment & Tiny Spaces - Manual Hand Clothes Washer with Retro Design - Clean Laundry Anywhere with Our Countertop, Non-Electric, Small Washer - Blue

Four years later and I've bought two more of these to give to travel nurse friends as gifts! It's small, lightweight, an the drum holds detergent, softener, and Lysol laundry sanitizer when I transport it. I'm still cranking my washing when I rent a place with no washer and dryer, and still delighted. I hand wring everything still, and have upgraded from rope in a closet to a collapsible clothes tree I spotted at a big box store. See the latest picture. That way, I can dry outside if the weather is compatible, but easy enough o do inside as well. I figure the Wonder Wash has saved me about 80 trips to a laundromat. Fantastic! ------------------------------------- Holy wonderful washing unit! I really cannot tell you how impressed I am, but I am sure going to try. I've had the Wonderwash for about a week now and I've done laundry every other day. It's so quick and easy that I start it while waiting for my coffee to brew, let it drain while I make breakfast, do a rinse run while my eggs finish cooking, plate up my food while it drains, rinse one more time, and eat my meal while it drains the final time. It doesn't even need that final rinse, I'm just picky. It is absolutely perfect for my scrubs. I can wash and hang a couple of uniforms every couple of days and never run out again. No more waiting for the laundry room in my apartment to have a free machine. I've converted a closet into a make shift drying area with dollarstore plastic drop cloth, clothesline, and clothespins. This machine has successfully washed scrubs, delicate, jeans, workout clothes, towels, sheets, and tonight I ran my tennis shoes through it! The absolute success of it, across the board, has me writing this review while it drains. The machine is almost entirely plastic so it is super light weight. It snaps together easily for use. It uses very little water and detergent. Best of all, it really cleans. When not in use, I wipe the drum dry and stash it in the same closet I use to hang clothes. This is a must have for travel nurses. No more hunting for open laundromats at 2am, or checking the facilities machines every hour hoping to get some laundry done. I see this being great for camping too. I can't wait to take it on a trip. For now, it certainly sees enough use. Love love love this. TIPS AND TRICKS (Because I can find a dozen reviews and very little advice) °Add water and soap before clothes. Keep a hand towel nearby for inevitable dribbles. °If using hot water, pressure builds up (that's a feature, not a bug!) and sometimes the lid will start to leak. After a few turns, release the lid, lock it back down, and keep going. You may have to do this a couple times based upon how hot the water is. °This is where that hand towel comes in. Give the drum a quick wipe to reduce splatter. °Use a permanent marker to indicate the grooves on the drainage tube (see picture). This saves you the messy fumble of trying to line it up while water leaks everywhere. °Use less water to rinse than you did to wash. The clothes are already wet, and too much water causes the unit to wobble and thud loudly when it is turned. I have found that my rinse cycles take about half the water of my wash cycle. °Wash with hot and rinse with cold to save the "lid dribbles" when you don't need them! I rinse twice. After my wash, I add a spoonful of fabric softener to the first rinse, and plain water to my second. My clothes smell fantastic. °If you are line or coat-hanger-drying indoors, set up a fan to decrease your drying time exponentially. Also, it makes the whole room smell like clean laundry which is awesome! °Worried you're not rinsing out all the soap? With dry hands, rub your washed clothes between your fingers and then rub your fingers together. If they feel slippery rather than just wet, rinse again. And stop using so much soap, jeez. Hope that helps.

The title says it all: It is a freakin' Wonder Machine. But why did I buy it? Because I like to crank? Because I am a save-the-water nutcase? Because I need a lower arm grip bulge? Because I have a great story about washing machines? In order: Sort of; not nutcase but I saw the film about Sahara travelers who left their village when the well dried up and had to give their oldest son and half their cows to the warlord for safe passage and water; wouldn't hurt; now how did you guess? Obviously my washing machine is finished. Because the required "I can fix it, sir" parts are NLA. No longer available, for those of you who are like I was a week ago. My mom's first washer dryer set lasted 50 years. My refurb aqua blue Whirlpool matched set were 40 years old when I bought them for $175 installed in 1979 and I know for a fact still going strong today. With two minor repair visits - one a mouse hose chewthrough - and enough diapers through them to handle six months of China's annual newborn population for a year. Okay. I have a stacked washer and gas dryer, condominium alcove 24" deep size front loader - BIG BIG fan - about 20 years old. Very nicely treated to a light load - min cold water, low suds, gentle cycle - every two weeks, (Work at home, no filthy, sweaty, commute-cursing soil.). White-Westinghouse for those who were wondering. And a functioning gas dryer that makes the Wonder Machine WonderFUL. Can I get just the washer because the dryer is gas, as noted, and I think they die when the owner dies in the explosion caused by 80 year old gas tubing, but not before? I'm not an engineer - once software - but any fool can see the constraints on washer replacement growing out of control lickety split. Otherwise why would I be reduced to trying out a WONDER MACHINE? Another constraint: the alcove depth for the stack is 34" but only 27" from back wall to the support posts. So my White-Westinghouse, at 24.5" deep was perfect. You see where this is going, right? Keep your eyes peeled because it's a forked road. I start looking for replacements. First, sticker stun. Not sticker shock. Sticker stun. Second, will it fit? Third, will the Home Depot installers put it under my still hot-as-heck-when-needed but cool-as-heaven-when-not? Obviously: "No, I am very sorry but we are unable to do that for you, sir" said the genuinely nice and incredibly knowledgeable online help chat lady. Can I find a refurb front loader? Maybe. From a reputable source that will guarantee it won't leak on my neighbor downstairs. Who moved in 2 years before I did 23 years ago. And sold me the washer/dryer combo I now have 15 years ago for $150? And had her installers put mine in for free? Well, Tony, the AAA aPliance repairman who charged $50 to explain to me what NLA means said "No problem sir. I will call you tomorrow on my mother's and let you know." Sorry, Tony's mother. It's a week and no Tony ringee dingee so I guess he must have been your first son. So, "Can I find a refurb front loader?" No way. So I think I am headed for the $899 LG which I will put in myself with the help of some of the guys who work at the condo for $100, pizza, and beer. It'll stick out because it's 1/2 inch deeper than the alcove and the machine needs 2" or so behind for connections and "breathing room" according to the licensed, certified professional (Tony) who told me I was toast for $50. And looked on the Westinghouse website with me and explained the NLA next to every part we needed. So, I swallow, forget about all the money I don't have from my "I will definitely pay you for this work" from my friends and "Gotcha" - or "Gotit" from my not-so-friends and put the $899 + shipping + install in my emotional acceptance range. Then I looked at the warranty. One year. No profanity on Amazon reviews and no pointers to profanity but think capital w followed by two letters last one f and you have my verbalization - also called something else, for example in court - but a prohibited Amazon review word, I'm pretty sure. One year? Are you freakin' kidding me? Now we digress, but not really. Are you freakin' kidding me? A 700 HP Corvette ZR1 has a 36 month bumper-to-bumper. I imagine they have engine and transmission action recorders like BMW and Mercedes so they can tell if you crank it to 6500 rpm and drop the clutch more than a few times - it's manual only because they want to make sure you have that 20% sure-death power you lose in an automatic. So let me get this straight: A $900 $1000 delivered installed piece of Korean best of breed engineering with every technical, mechanical, and materials improvement they could put into it beyond what was in the Japanese best in the world machine they copied has a 12 month warranty? And the ZR1 Blue Devil Corvette, which goes 200+ mph and is made to withstand actual endurance racing stress with a couple hundred dollar addons and ceramic brakes if you didn't get the "comfort package" has 36 months? Unless you buy the 5 year bumper-to-bumper for a couple of thousand more? Now, some comparison facts. The LG weighs a couple of hundred pounds and moves only three times: 1. Korea to US portside. 2. Portside to Distribution Warehouse. 3. Warehouse to You. Final stop. Not "we're delivering your $140,000 ZR1 to your office today" final stop. Final unless-you-move-and-take-it-with-you final stop." No 0-120s. No sub-10 quarter miles all day long and maybe a wheelie for your chick/guy/whatever when you want to show off. No "Watch that dumb Viper run out of breath at 185 and eat my dust to 206?" None of that. Just dump clothes in, pour in some soap, close the lid, turn it on, let it drink, churn, spin, spin some more, rinse, drink, churn, spin, and stop. That's it. Maybe, maximum, 730 times. Before its warranty runs out. That's twice a day for a year, give or take depending on whether it's leap year, which is probably a warranty exclusion anyway. Or me, maybe 30 times in the 12 month warranty period. It's not that I stink. As noted, I work at home - long "friends" story - and dress very down, especially when the temperature is over 50 degrees. So, 12 months with your space ship LG (or Samsung or whatever space age washing machine you buy) and you're on your own. Let's contrast that to a ZR1. Or a Viper. Or a Yugo. Or a Camry, whatever. Here're some numbers. Keep in mind these things all have at least 36 months of warranty on drivetrain parts, which is 1095 days, or 1096 days if you get lucky. Suppose you drive the thing 12,000 miles a year, maybe 35 miles a day at let's say 30 mph. Which is not going to happen in a ZR1 but let's suppose. And let's suppose you're always at 2000 RPM, which you're sure as heck not going to be in a ZR1. But let's suppose. So, when your ZR1 36 month warranty runs out, your double supercharged 700 HP planet-moving torque motor that toasts the Viper when it runs out of air at around 180, it looks like this according to my Microsoft calculator accessory: 35 miles per day 30 miles per hour 70 minutes driving 2000 rpm 140,000 revolutions/day 1096 days * 140,000 revolutions 153,440,000 turns of the 700 horsepower double supercharged motor which, if you bring it in for repair and you remembered to take all the stock class 1/4 mile trophies out of the back, they'll fix to new specs no questions asked. Of course smiling and winking at you because they were there too, cheering the bowtie. And the thing is not supposed to break. It is built for that. And those pistons? Up and down 2X revolutions. Basically we are in the 150 Million to 1/2 billion range warranted against failure here. Now, what's the deal with a washing machine? No trophies. No dropping the clutch. No 1.3 g side load on Goodyear 20" wide low profiles gum drops. Just some nice warm water, some low sudsing sweet smelling soap, everyone's disgusting dirty clothes of course, some churning, a little spinning, a rinse, a repeat or two, and that's it. What's not to like? No abuse, no wheelies, no driveshaft-bending, skyscraper-collapsing, Redwood-tumbling torque. No ECU re-programming between required scheduled visits to the Chevy dealer for an extra 80 horsepower and 90 foot pounds of frame twisting, gear shattering, driveshaft snapping, axle twisting torque. None of that. Just wash the clothes and go back to sleep. So I thought long and hard about all this. For a minute. And thank you very much, I'll do my sweaty running clothes and a couple of towels once a week by hand or stomp them in the tub while I shower and wait until my nice neighbor lady downstairs gets her next new washer/dryer from her kids and buy the ones she has for, maybe, $200 installed. But I tried the WONDER MACHINE so I wouldn't have to bend over so often in the shower to move my running clothes around as I stomp them when I shower. And it works great, as my friends would say. The WONDER MACHINE's clean clothes go into my old old old hot-as-heck gas dryer and that's it. First time out, I was cranking the handle and working up the nerve to do the OMG NOT THAT PLEASE running-socks sniff test. Then I looked at the water coming out of the WONDER MACHINE drain pipe OMG NOT THAT PLEASE. Filth. Lenny Bruce never came close. I sniffed, I smiled, and I am smiling still as everything is toastily drying in the gas dryer. The WONDER MACHINE now occupies its place of honor in the back of my bathtub waiting for its next 3 minute, make-your-clothes-as-good-as-new workout. I gotta say, this whole washing machine industry has us all by the dirty shorts. I see a business opportunity here. Suppose I licensed the 80 year old Whirlpool designs, or got them for free because they are probably in the public domain now. And I built washers - top, side, front, back - whatever loaders just like Mom used to have. No fancy computer junk. Three cycles, three water temperatures, that's it. And gave a 20/25 year no questions asked no fine print warranty. And sold them on Amazon for $499 + $80 delivery + $50 install. I know no one is reading this sentence, or will read the next, next-to-last-but-two sentence but here's the punchline. Who wouldn't buy one? Maybe not me if this WONDER MACHINE keeps working like it is now and I don't need to wash my 41 year old Holubar Summer Light Royal Blue mint condition sleeping bag again. Ever.

Do you crank? I do! If you crank, and crank it good, like me, you will love this little fully-manual washer. Pros: Simple to put the main parts together. Simple to operate, and easy to move from place to place, which makes it easy to store away out of sight. Cons: Some of the smaller pieces, specifically the little covers that fit over the holes in the base, did not ever fit into the holes. No matter how hard I pressed, they wouldn't go in. But they don't seem to be a crucial part of the machine--more for aesthetics than anything. Still, a bit annoying. Next, the barrel is small. If you're only one person you may not mind doing three or four cycles of wash to equal one normal washer full of laundry. The drum fits about 4-1/3 to 4-1/2 gallons of water. Use too much soap and you're done for. You'll be doing multiple rinses just to get it all out. A tablespoon of concentrated soap is more than enough for a full load. Next, full load capacity: Think about one standard size towel, one pair of pants, two t-shirts, a few pair of socks and an equal number of underwear and bras. That's it. Operation: Important first step is to pre-treat all stains first! Once you have pre-treated, fill the drum with one gallon of hot water, add your one tablespoon of soap (1 tsp. if you pretreated with full-strength detergent), lightly tilt the drum back and forth to make the water sudsy, then add two more gallons of hot water. Begin to put your clothes in, and then gauge however much more water you think you'll need. I usually add another half to a full gallon, depending on the water displacement and how much the clothes soak up. Put the lid on, turn, and close the pressurizer. Begin to spin. 60 rotations in one direction, then 60 in the other. Stop. Let it soak for ten minutes, go do something else. Make a sandwhich, make the bed, feed the cat... After ten minutes, crank 30 seconds in each direction. The pressurization is what does the work. You are cranking a total of 180 spins which is the equivalent of running a washer on the cleaning cycle for 8 minutes, give or take. Once this is done, attach your drain spout, remove the lid to free the water, and let it drain for five minutes. Press down a little on the clothes when you think they're all done draining and they'll drain some more. This is a good idea if you want to lessen the work of wringing out the clothes slightly. Remove the drain spout, fill the drum with hot or warm water, replace the lid and get cranking again. 60 rotations both ways let sit for a minute, remove the lid and check to see where you're at for rinsing. You may want to repeat the rinse step if you put too much soap in. If you want to skip the rinse step all together, buy that special yet expensive no rinse required soap, or even soap berries, which are natural berry that suds like soap and gets your clothes naturally clean. I've used them and can recommend. When you're finished checking the rinse water, drain again, press again, and drag out the clothes. Wring by hand or put in your Ninja spin dryer. I love mine. Use an accordian clothes dryer or if you have cats, or other small animals or toddlers around, be safe and use a telescoping clothes drier that won't collapse on anyone curious and playful who might like to try swinging from your laundry and bring the whole apparatus down on themselves. Overall, I would recommend this product for single people, people who need to wash things separate from the normal laundry, people who need to wash dirty/oily uniforms, baby clothes, etc. Or for campers, boon-dockers, off-grid types who live in RVs and vans and don't wish to make a weekly trip to the laundromat and wash their clothes in recycled wash water that everyone else has used (yes, this is what many laundromats do). In short: I recommend. Good luck!

I live in a smallish apartment that doesn't have washer dryer hookups and shares laundry facilities with the other tenants. It's been a decent setup but they have been steadily increasing the price of the machines over time. On top of that I live around a bunch of college aged people that tend to forget when their clothes are in the machines or take up all of them at once. Those sorts of fun times with shared machines. I've always debated buying a small apartment friendly washing machine but put it off. Then when all the machines were taken out by water damage it made the decision for me. I got this machine because it doesn't require a water connection, it doesn't require power, and it is a simple spinner so there's no concern about maintenance. This fits into both my current situation and in a power outage or other situation I'll still have a way to wash clothes. Assembly was a piece of cake although as others have stated the little caps that go into the legs are a little awkward to fit. Start from the bottom and work your way up and it'll be easier to lock them in. However they do tend to pop out randomly during use so keep your eyes open. This little thing has already paid for itself and has saved me so much time and money. It does a good enough job washing clothes. You'll still need to pre treat stains and what not and it'll take some time to adjust the water / soap ratio so you're able to properly rinse the clothes out without having to do multiple rinse cycles. But once you get the feel for it this thing is amazingly efficient and easy to use. Note that your clothes will come out sopping wet so it's not a bad investment to also get a spin dryer (which this same company also sells that also works great). Pair these two up with a clothes rack from IKEA and I've got a great little home washing and drying system.

I bought the Wonder Washer and a "Nina soft" spin dryer (another Laundry Alternative product) when my washing machine broke. First of all, I would recommend buying direct rather than from Amazon (I ordered the Wonder Wash from Amazon and the spin dryer directly from the company). The Laundry Alternative is easy to order direct from and has been responsive to my questions through e-mail. There is no sales tax buying direct and you can buy an "open box" version of each product for much less money. Mine works great and has no defects, and the company will replace it at no cost to you if there is a problem with it. Other reviewers have commented that this is a cheap and flimsy product, and does indeed have some problems. The drain spout consistently leaks a little bit. The top leaks a little too. It's a very wet process using this thing. The base is pretty weak. At first, I tried picking up the Wonder Wash and moving it while it was full of clothes and water, but the base can't really support the drum and the pieces that snap together start to come apart. So, as I discovered, you do need to have a space to set it up that has room for it to turn all the way around and then drain (I barely have enough room by my kitchen sink). The instruction for set up and use of this product are not great, but it's fairly self-evident how to put the pieces together. 1/4 cup of detergent is the recommend amount for a "full load" with 6 quarts of water, but that is WAY too much. I use between 2 tsp and 2 tbs of He liquid laundry detergent depending on how dirty the clothes are. Be prepared to do more than 1 rinse. To make rinsing more efficient, you can take all of the clothes out of the washer and wring them out right after washing with soap, then putting them back in with water to rinse, but this is a lot more time consuming. Here's how I wash cloth diapers using the Wonderwash and the Nina spin dryer: 1) Solid waste goes in the toilet immediately after a diaper change. No poopy diapers sitting around in the diaper pail. 2) Before bed every night, fill the kitchen sink with water (no soap) and put that day's dirty diapers in the water to soak all night. That's usually about 7-8 wraps, 15 or more diaper inserts and prefolds, and a handful of wipes. 3) In the morning, drain the sink. Set up the Wonderwash next to the sink to make it easier to fill and drain. Put 2 tablespoons of Ecos liquid laundry detergent and 2 tablespoons of baking soda in the bottom of the Wonderwash. Add 6 quarts of very hot tap water on top of that. Do not use boiling water in the Wonderwash. 4) Wring the dirty water out of each diaper by hand and place in the Wonderwash. 5) Put the lid on (turn and lock). Turn the crank 1x per second 120-180 times (if you turn too fast, it gets easier but the laundry will ball up). 6) Insert drain spout and let water drain. When draining slows, open and reach in to move diapers out of the way to let more water drain. 7) Remove drain spout and fill drum with 4 quarts cold water. Turn crank for 30 seconds. 8) Drain again. 9) Remove drain spout, add 4 quarts cold water, turn crank for 30 seconds, drain again. 10) Wring diapers just a little by hand so that they aren't completely dripping anywhere, then drop into the Nina Spin dryer. Plug in the dryer once the lid is closed and a drip bowl is in place. Allow it to spin until water is no longer draining. For other clothes, I do the same but use cold water and less detergent and I don't soak overnight. It's important to note that the Wonderwash does not wring out your clothes and they come out soaking wet. Wringing out by hand is time consuming and ineffective--unless you live in a very hot and dry climate that makes line drying wet stuff super easy, I would only recommend getting the Wonderwash if you also get a spin dryer or some other kind of wringer.

I recently traveled to Uganda (East African country) in October 2013. I had purchased this machine years ago for my own use and loved it. So I took it to a friend of mine who is a missionary in Africa for her to use. We both work as volunteers for a health care organization called Kissito.org. Kissito works with villagers in Africa to bring health and maternity care to villagers. So we demonstrated the washer to them after learning that the girls in African families must do all the family laundry each day before going to school. If they don't finish the laundry, they must miss school. Hoping to show the families something that could help them do their laundry well, and do it quickly, we took the machine into the villages. This video clip is one of a local villager who transports patients to the local health clinic demonstrating the machine to a group, including teasing a boy who is trying to turn the handle. This is the machine in action! What I love about this machine is it is pretty sturdy, since it withstood a year of my daily use, plus it survived 500 African villagers cranking on it all in ONE day! If you thought red Georgia clay was hard to get out of clothes, you haven't been to Uganda, east Africa. These villages have no electricity, no paved roads, lots of kids (average family has 7 children) and lots of dirty clothes. Families there LIVE in dirt huts, farm, play, work and have the dirtiest clothes imaginable, yet the WonderWash got load after load of clay and dirt soiled clothing CLEAN! The villagers were amazed, as was I. I mean after all, my gym stains and smelly, lightly dirty clothes I expected to get clean, but the grime and dirt that rinsed out of the WonderWash when put to a REAL test was stunning. It was SO effective our organization is trying to find a way to get MORE machines to Africa. Why? Because the girls in each family are tasked with washing the family's clothes every morning before leaving for school. If they don't finish the laundry, they must MISS school to do so. WonderWash could CHANGE the world simply by providing the ability to wash clothes fast enough that these girls can do the laundry and get to school on time. WHY WONDER WASH ROCKS It's lightweight, yet sturdy. I mean, after all it stood up to the rigors of a hike and trip in the back of an SUV on really rocky, difficult roads to get to an African village! It traveled TO Africa in a plastic tub packed with medical supplies, and survived the airline's handling without a crack or scratch! It is easy to assemble. It's durable. More than 500 villagers each had a chance to crank on the handle over the period of ONE DAY as we moved into three separate villages and demonstrated the machine with clothes the villagers brought to us. Kids, men and women of all ages and strengths gave it their best and it kept on working! It cleans! At one village we received a pair of pants a toddler had soiled himself in, a bloody towel from a health clinic, a pair of men's pants used by a man herding cattle and soiled with manure, and several very delicate, beautiful and colorful women's dresses, plus a large scarf. We washed them ALL in one load and they ALL came out CLEAN! Plus, they smelled GREAT! I can't say enough GOOD about this machine. I used it in the USA for a year until I got a car and could go to the laundromat where there was also a dryer. The only thing NOT to like about this washing machine is you do have to wring the clothes out and hang them up to dry...not a big deal. It works and for the price there's nothing better! I love it!

I once again could kick myself for not listening to my Mom! (She is 90, you would think I would listen by now!) In theory ONLY, this little washer seemed great. I watched many different videos (Not made by the company that makes Wonderwash) of people using this small washer. It looked and seemed to be just what I needed. What I failed to notice (Or think about) was, in all the videos I watched and researched, I failed to notice, something very obvious. MEN were the ones demonstrating the use of this washer. They have much larger hands, making it possible (perhaps, if you have Mohammed Alis hands!) to wring oceans of water from soaking wet sheets and towels. Think about how heavy a sheet weighs when loaded with pounds of water! If you are hanging these items inside, your floor or rug will end up soaked. You can also forget about anything drying, when it is that wet. Nothing comes out of the wonderwash without needing a small army to wring all the water out of any items you placed inside to wash. I am used to hand washing all my delicates and I do this on a nightly basis. We are all adults here, so, that would be, one pair of panties along with two socks or (pany hose or tights) and one bra and camisole. If you wait until you have even a pound or two (which is literally a couple bras and pairs of panties) they are a tangled mess of heavy, sopping wet items, impossible to untangle or wring out. You also have a flood of water and a soapy mess to clean up once you have figured out you have been duped! The ridiculous thing doesn't empty out the dirty water buy the handy little pipe your supposed to attach. Attaching the pipe is a small feat in and of itself, since you do this with wet hands, and again takes, a lot of strenghth. As a matter of fact, everything becomes more than a little difficult when your turning this and twisting that with wet soapy hands. Also, have a grand time cleaning up the equivilent to the Atlantic! Definately not the time saver I was lead to believe it would be. My nightly ritual of hand washing takes all of 10 to 15 minutes (including hanging the garments for drying) This was my lesson! "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" Then there is the problem of the soap NOT rinsing out. I used half the soap recommended with the second go round of clothes and still found after rinsing everything twice, a huge layer of soapy foam sitting on the top of all the clothes. I had to tip the darn thing upside down to get the water out of the (now VERY heavy "washer"). I want to be very clear about the water evacuation. It will empty I would imagine, IF you had a week, perhaps to wait for the dribble of water that does come out of the attachment. Having said that, the clothes are still sopping wet and very heavy and still loaded with soap residue.. DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. It is a total piece of plastic junk. Even the small pieces after only one use began to pop off. I could have had my entire months worth of clothes washed, dried, folded AND put away in the time it took to just clean up the mess! I had a month's worth of laundry when this rather costly and disappointing "Wonderwash" arrived. I waited to use it, not wanting to try a months worth of clothes on its first use and never expected I would be able to do ALL items with it anyway. So I believe I am beyond my time frame to return it which I believe may happen to others. If after reading this review and you foolisly don't listen to my mom (as I so foolishly did not) I recommend you use it right away, clean up the mess and return it (as you will most certainly want to never see it again) immediately! I am thinking creatively and trying to turn a bad situation into a better one. I would not give it to a charity for obvious reasons. ( Why give a mess to someone else to clean up?) but I was thinking it might make a great compost container! I think it could make a decent planter if sunk in the ground for mint! I am sure kids will find all kinds of interesting planets for their stuffed animals to travel to and bring back valuable information. I think I am going to use mine for recycling day to put bottles and cans in. Probably will make an excellent cooler for beer or soda! Fill it with ice and crank it around once in a while to be sure everything is staying nice and chilly :) I have been lucky with most online purchases and every now and then this happens. You can boohoo or laugh at how silly you were to ignore your own mom who will probably give you the same advise mine did! Do not forget to include time to make a humble pie and send a note saying... WHY did you let me buy this da@n thing! Bottom line - Anytime you get thinking, I might just try it anyway,,, think about what 90 years on this planet has taught any woman who has spent a good part of those years washing clothes!! Then smile, gather together your quarters and head off to the laundry mat. At least YOU won't be the one holding the mop!

14 Jun, 2014 - My wife and I camp at the two week long Pennsic War each year. It's an SCA event with ~10k people in a single campsite, with limited access to laundry facilities. Bought this in order to maintain our practice of using cloth diapers for our 1 year old son at war this year. Tried it out once in the bathtub already and we were quite impressed with it's performance and ease of use. Will post an updated review after the event with "real world" insight. WARNING to the squeamish - diapers can be a dirty business. 12 Aug, 2014 - UPDATE! After Pennsic this year I can give excellent reports on this washer! We made it through the entire length of our stay still using cloth diapers for our son. We brought plenty of cotton diaper liners, had to wash in the WonderWash twice for diapers alone. (We washed some of our period garb as well, but we brought enough to last our trip, so this review will focus on our diapers) We also used wool diaper covers that my wife made out of sweaters from Goodwill. Brought along two 5 gallon buckets for water and for use as a "diaper pail" to soak the dirties in. Poopy diapers were scraped clean before soaking in the diaper pail, pee diapers were simply soaked. A typical load was: ~20 cotton liners into the Wonderwash, a quarter capful of Ecover brand laundry detergent, and about 3 gallons of water. Cranked for about 2 minutes. I didn't count turns or time (we were chatting while working.) Attached the drain, loosened the lid and let it drain while I refilled my bucket. Come back, remove drain, fill with about 3 more gallons of water. Close lid and crank for another 2 minutes. Drain after rinsing. We did 3 rinses for each load of diapers. This was perhaps overkill, but considering they're diapers and next to super sensitive skin which seems to break out in a rash in the blink of an eye, we wanted to get them super clean. Wringed to remove as much water as possible and then hung on a line behind our tent to dry. Overall, the diapers came out VERY clean and well washed. There were a few stains remaining from the diaper rash cream we use, but even the home washer doesn't get that out. Line drying our diapers was another story however, the weather simply did not cooperate, and just as we were nearing complete dryness of the diapers, the skies opened up and poured rain down upon us. Oh well! We had enough liners to make it through until we could dry sufficiently; though we did get close to running out one day. This washer comes with my highest recommendation for Pennsic. I would compare it's wash cycle to a "gentle" cycle in a normal washer, so there is no fear about washing garb with delicate lace, trim, tassels or things like that. It does take a bit of technique to get used to how fast to turn the crank. You want to turn it fast enough to get some "sloshing" action going. If you turn it too slowly all you're doing is flipping the clothes (possibly a super gentle wash.) If you turn too quickly, the clothes all stay at one end and never slosh down (centrifugal force.) I think I will peel off the stickers and paint the Wonderwash in browns and black with a faux wood finish, so that it will look less modern and anachronistic in our camp at Pennsic. I already painted our plastic buckets to look like wood. Added bonus #1: Our son loved splashing & playing in the clean water bucket while I cranked! Added bonus #2: The empty washer can store all of the critical laundry items, making for easy packing and organization. We packed a bottle of detergent, clothespins and roll of clothesline all inside with room to spare.