Getting through the washing...

MallyGirl

2 adults and 1 teen daughter here. We have 2 built in washbins in the bathroom unit (1 for white and one for darks) plus a freestanding basket in the airing cupboard which we call the 'chino wash'. Wash goes on when the basket is full. We probably only run the machine 3 or 4 times a week - DD is in school uniform, OH is a shirt and nice jeans guy and I work from home so a pair of jeans lasts a few days since no one can see the mud from the dog walking. Add in towels, bedding, tea towels, what else is there?
The machine has 1600 spin so things are not too wet when they come out. Only towels/bedding go in the tumble to finish off after being on the airer first.
The bathroom has a heated floor and plenty of space so there is usually an airer or 2 up in there. No one showers or bathes in there - we all use the ensuite as it has a better shower. We don't use the outside whirly gig in the winter as the mud from the dogs outweighs any benefit from outside drying.

I do not iron - OH does his and DD's shirts. The rest is used as it comes.

suki1964

Jackieboy wrote: »

That's a minimum of 11 loads a week for 2 people!:eek:

Do you both work in dirty jobs?

He's a builder, I'm a cook and do market research. So I have my whites, his work clothes, my work clothes, our ordinary clothes

Then there are the dog towels ( near daily ATM it's so muddy) towels and tea towels ( I can get through six a day as well as the dish cloths)

Oh and this week I have had house guests so an extra five sets of bedding, towels and dressing gowns . Although I do admit to not doing them all in the one day, I've spread them out all week around work

happilymarried2013

I'm finding it really hard at the moment to dry washing due to the stupid weather. Hubby and I are lucky to be in fairly relaxed jobs that involve wearing jeans most of the day.
The jeans are collected and sent down my mother in laws, I gather all the tshirts together and take them to the laundrette every 3 weeks. £14 for them to be washed dried and ironed - I couldn't do it cheaper myself. I'm on a prepayment gas meter.
Towels and undies I do as and when by myself. Roll on the dry weather!

matchboxfull

There are five of us here.

I do at least one load of washing a day, probably an average of 10 a week.

I have two teenage sons. They each have a washing basket in their room. If the clothes aren't in it (or if there are any on the floor) they don't get washed.

We also have a washing basket in our room. Then, in the utility room, we have a further basket that divides lights from darks. The bedroom washing baskets don't get brought downstairs; the clothes in them get pulled out by the armful and chucked down the stairwell on their way to the utility room.

I try to collect up the dirty washing as I come down in the morning and put it on before the school-run. Our washing machine has a large capacity and a 59 minute cycle that does for most things.

Then it all gets shoved in the tumble drier (I'm sorry, I know I am going to hell! We don't even own a line or an airer. I'm a terrible person!)

Then some time that afternoon I'll pull it out of the tumble drier into a plastic basket and fold it into piles in the utility room (one for each person, one for towels, etc..)

Usually the piles for myself, my OH, and my little one get stacked up in the plastic basket and distributed upstairs. Sometimes I'll leave the stacked basket ready to take up later (ie. when we're putting LO to bed).

The piles belonging to teenagers are supposed to be collected by them, but this invariably requires nagging.

I'm acutely aware that if I slack off and don't do washing even for one day the whole thing goes quickly into backlog chaos. Similarly, for us, starting a load in the evening spells trouble, so we'll only do that if there's already a pile-up for some reason.

Uniforms go in on a Saturday, including an extra (white) load with shirts etc.. And, if I iron at all, it's only things that really, really need it and only on a Sunday morning.

MrsSave

There are 3 of us here. I work 4 days a week so on my mid week day off I do several loads of washing. Towels get done then, bed clothes every other week and everything else that's in the basket. It's usually 3-4 loads. I then do another 2 loads over the weekend. I have a tumble dryer which I use for towels and bed clothes. I hang the rest on the clothes airer. Dh does the ironing, and only irons what has to be (I hang some immediately, bed clothes, pj's, underwear, etc done get ironed).

Purple_kitten

There are 2 of us here also and that's plenty for the washing loads, with numerous animals. For us I do a washing load every day to keep up to date sometimes it works once every 2 days as it's always a full load.

The animal bedding works out at 2 washing loads a week and this part tumble dried to remove the hair.

Today for example one of our clothes loads is on the go and then the towels will also be washed, both loads will be hung on a drying thing as I'm not in a rush for them.

Our bedding is done once a week and hung out to dry.

Edited to add I don't iron except for special occasions as things hang I haven't noticed any badly creased things.

LameWolf

Just two of us here.

The only thing that is done on a schedule is the bedlinen; DH changes it on a Saturday as that's a task I cannot manage unaided. Otherwise - towels and hankies get done as and when there's enough to fill the machine.

DH's clothes get done when there's a full load - as a general rule, when there's a pair of jeans and a pair of work trousers, it's time to do his stuff.

My stuff gets done on the quick economy cycle, as it doesn't get very grubby - this occurs when I'm running out of underwear, so probably every three weeks or so. Quite a bit of my outerwear has to be washed by hand, in any case, so it takes a while for me to get a full load together.

Everything gets hung out if possible; otherwise all except bedlinen goes on A-frames over the bath; I confess we do tumble bedlinen if we can;t put it outside, because we have a really tiny bungalow and there's simply not the room for a huge great duvet cover to dry indoors.

Not exactly organised, but it works for us.

The only things that get ironed are DH's trousers and shirts for work, and he does those himself on a Sunday, sufficient for the following week.

mashedavocado

I'm terrible at putting stuff away but I am good at putting a wash on!

I've set a goal of putting a load on each day (there's me, OH, baby, plus cloth nappies). We put our stuff into one basket but have a separate one for the baby's stuff. And a bucket for the nappies.

I'm a bit haphazard with it but I generally put on whatever needs doing - so if baby's basket is full I do that (don't bother sorting into colours/lights, if it runs it'll only fit her two minutes anyway!), with ours I generally do whites, reds and everything else. Towels I aim to do once a week (and usually fail...) same with bedding.

Putting it away is a different matter though!

Slinky

I can't bear hanging stuff outside on the washing line if it isn't going to dry fully, otherwise it's trebling the work load. Hanging it out, bringing it in, hanging it up again. The rotary washing line gets moved to the shed in the winter to stop the post rusting in the hole.

Most stuff gets hung on A frames over the bath or airers in the spare bedroom. Only towels and bedding go in the tumble drier.

dragonette

I do about two loads a week, sometimes a little less (3 a fortnight or so). One of clothes and one of either bedding or towels depending on the week. I use reusable cleaning cloths and it still takes about 2 weeks to gather enough towels and cloths to be worth putting on a load. Jeans and leggings etc can be worn for more than one day - the underwear is there to keep the outer clothes clean afterall, tshirts one day jumpers for several. This is for one person, I fold/roll everything a la Marie Kondo (except socks, can't make that bit stick).

I dry laundry outside when weather and health allows. A mixture of radiators and airers if it's inside. Folded and put away as health allows, any I can't cope with goes in a clean laundry blanket in one of my wardrobes and dealt with when poss.

I can't really imagine needing to do many more tbh, even when I worked a manual labour job and got covered in mud it was about the same