[Piglet68]

DH and I are moving in August. To get a place with an insuite washer/dryer means an expensive "executive style" suite in a brand new building. OTOH, there's a lovely part of downtown full of old buildings, many very nice suites, but no hookups for insuite laundry. The difference in rent is huge. We could get a nice 2 bedroom without hookups for about $800/month, whereas a 2-bedroom with hookups (ie. the new buildings) are about $1500-1800/month.

Now, it goes without saying that we need our own washer/dryer. DH has been surfing the net, and found several "portable" washing machines that hook up to a sink outlet. Some of this have regular, heavy, and delicate cycles, adjustable water levels, etc. We're thinking that even if we have to wash our diapers once a day (or more), the money we're saving on rent would make it so worthwhile. Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

My question is: can these things really clean cloth diapers? Has anybody used such a washer?

 

[Oceanone]

i do not see why not. i think it's a fantastic solution. our dishwasher runs on the same concept and it works just as well as the other models. nak

 

[ryansmom02]

not sure but probably........ I wanna get one of those for when we go on long camping trips..... now off to research

 

[Book Addict Jen]

We have a dishwasher too & it works just fine.

 

[bikruca]

We use the kennmore compact washer and dryer, great size for a load of diapers, but it is about 1/2 of what you would put into a normal washer, to give you an idea right now I have my queen sized fitted sheet, top sheet, 4 pillowcases and a t-shirt in there and it is full. I have washed 2 dozen prefolds but it was a bit packed!

gets things very clean, same as a regular washer, just remember to adjust the amount of detergent because it is a much smaller load.

You also can probably find these machines used for a good price. I am moving to a townhouse (with hookups) and I no longer need mine, but the resale value is so LOW (we paid about 1 grand new, used them less than a year and I doubt we could get 300 for them) that I am just going to save them for my brother (when he finally decides to move out LOL)

The portable washing machines work better than portable dishwashers (from what I have heard) because with a dishwasher the wash depends a lot on the water pressure, whereas with a washing machine it doesnt matter, it just fills up then does it's thing!

Anyways if you have any spacific questions let me know I have been using one for about a year as I said! (oh, and if you want to come up to Canada to get them, you can have mine for a pretty good price! lol)

 

[Piglet68]

thanks so much for the replies so far (bikruca, I PM'd you).

The "Haier" brand seems to make a variety of these "sink hookup" washers. They advertise that they don't use an agitator, but rather pulse "waterfall-like" jets of water into the wash load. Has anybody heard of this, and do you think it would be powerful enough to clean diapers?

turns out the harder part is going to be the dryer. we can't seem to find a dryer that doesn't need a 220 volt outlet, other than teeny ones for drying "underwear" that would never get a 4-layer hemp soaker dry. any tips on that would be great, too.

 

[LizaBear]

Nope - BUT we do hook our full-sized washing machine (Whirlpool Super-Capacity Plus) up to our kitchen tap and it works great that way !

 

[Piglet68]

Okay, back to add some info in case anybody else is wondering...

I just got off the phone with the Haier company: they make a combination washer/dryer that hooks up to a sink (or standard hookup) AND a regular 115 V outlet, self-venting drying system.

It holds 14.3 lbs, and does heavy cycles...so I think this would work well for cloth diapers. The dryer will be a bit less powerful when hooked up to 115V, but I don't mind line drying my dipes after an initial short cycle in the dryer so...

YAY! You can have cloth diapers and live in an apartment without insuite laundry hookups!