The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

ZsaZsa

pineapple said:

LadOnTheHill said:

A washing machine is more awkward to work out, because the heater will use a certain amount to warm the water, where the drum rotating will use a lot less. I seem to recall some libraries loaning energy monitor plugs out. Maybe we should set up a thing here on mse where someone can borrow one for a fortnight, or something?

I don't have a washing machine due to a shared supply with low water flow. So I used a launderette till covid struck. However since shielding, a friend has been doing my washing. She won't take payment and I have got her the occasional groceries in my online shop instead. However I would really like an idea of what it is costing her (though she uses economy 7). .

I don’t know it helps, but I’ve just checked the reading on my machine as a load finished. It was a full load, temp 40oc, spin 1600, 50 min cycle and it used 0.4 kWh and 30litres of water. If you know your friends tariff you might be able to estimate from this?

pollyanna_26

LadOnTheHill said:

pineapple said:

However I would really like an idea of what it is costing her (though she uses economy 7).

I remembered that I did a few tests a while back with our washing machine, and managed to find the details. Her machine will likely vary.

0 heat, fast wash = 86w (aka eco wash, I turned it down as much as possible,  30min)

1400 spin = 100w (20min)

60° half load 1400 spin = 800w (~2hr)

30° full load 1400 spin = 400w (~1.5hr)

My old twin tub used to wash everything in fifteen minutes, with whatever temperature water came out of the tap. Stuff came out clean, apart from muddy walking trousers on occasion. Very cheap on electricity, much more labour though.

LadOnTheHill said:

pineapple said:

However I would really like an idea of what it is costing her (though she uses economy 7).

I remembered that I did a few tests a while back with our washing machine, and managed to find the details. Her machine will likely vary.

0 heat, fast wash = 86w (aka eco wash, I turned it down as much as possible,  30min)

1400 spin = 100w (20min)

60° half load 1400 spin = 800w (~2hr)

30° full load 1400 spin = 400w (~1.5hr)

My old twin tub used to wash everything in fifteen minutes, with whatever temperature water came out of the tap. Stuff came out clean, apart from muddy walking trousers on occasion. Very cheap on electricity, much more labour though.

I still miss the twin tub I had in the 70s when my twoeldest were babies. Fast and easy and the nappies would be out on the line in a very short time. I only got my first automaticfor the wool wash. Mum was still happy with her twin tub so first wash was her collection ofl lovely lambswool  and Shetland cardigans. It shrunk the lot!

I was mortified and avoided her for a week. She said it didn;t matter but I was determined to replace them all. We had a lot of beans on toast, homemade soups and Jacket Spuds for a while but I replaced every one.

 

Automatics are less hands on but I often wonder if I shoulgd go back to  a twin tub next time. I don't mind hand washing knitwear but looking on line there don't seem to be many twin tubs around now. I passed mine on to a friend when I got the automatic and it went on working for many years. They don't make them like that anymore.

The older I get the more I think of "Blue Remembered Hills". We threw the baby out with the bath water moving away from British manufacturing. Most things seem to be built with shorter life spans and so much goes to landfill.

pollyx

jk0

pollyanna_26 said:

The older I get the more I think of "Blue Remembered Hills". We threw the baby out with the bath water moving away from British manufacturing. Most things seem to be built with shorter life spans and so much goes to landfill.

pollyx

The other day I realised that all my kitchen appliances other than a 17 year old washer drier are 2nd hand. I've just got to the stage where I look on ebay for 2nd hand things, because even 2nd hand things last longer than new things nowadays.

I got a brilliant SDS plus Bosch battery drill for £50 the other day. Ordered a new charger & pair of batteries, for £130, and now have a setup that I think would have cost nearly £1000 a few years ago.

pollyanna_26

jk0 said:

pollyanna_26 said:

The older I get the more I think of "Blue Remembered Hills". We threw the baby out with the bath water moving away from British manufacturing. Most things seem to be built with shorter life spans and so much goes to landfill.

pollyx

The other day I realised that all my kitchen appliances other than a 17 year old washer drier are 2nd hand. I've just got to the stage where I look on ebay for 2nd hand things, because even 2nd hand things last longer than new things nowadays.

I got a brilliant SDS plus Bosch battery drill for £50 the other day. Ordered a new charger & pair of batteries, for £130, and now have a setup that I think would have cost nearly £1000 a few years ago.

I still have many of the garden tools my dad and grandads used in their gardens and on their allotments in the 50s and 6os and they're still being used by me.

I hate all the constantly replacing perfect;y usable things.

I bought a new quite expensive TV in JL about 14 years ago. Freeview , 32" flat screen and it's been worth every penny. For years people have been telling me I need . bigger better etc but I don't want the room I relax in to be dominated by a monster TV. It works well and suits me. I would never replace anything for the latest trend.

So many people get in to serious debt keeping up or outstripping the Jones's. When I bought this new build in the mid 70s we were all new young families. Neighbours bought 2nd cars, started flying abroad for holidays and followed the trend for everything. Some had 2nd mortgages and loans against the property.

When the big interest rates hit they lost their homes. We'd all been mis sold those endowment mortgages . most had theiir home repossessed or sold them for a very low offer.

I'm still here with two other original families.  Last mortgage payment was Nov 1999. The shortfall for endowments hit everyone but I and a couple of others had been putting away  money for that final endowment payment.

All the utility and food increases now are going to be tough but so many will be still flashing the cards until they can no longer do that.

pollyx

GaleSF63

LadOnTheHill said:

My old twin tub used to wash everything in fifteen minutes, with whatever temperature water came out of the tap. Stuff came out clean, apart from muddy walking trousers on occasion. Very cheap on electricity, much more labour though.

When I had a twin tub I used to end up as wet as the washing - mainly from transferring it from the wash to the spinner. And it had a 4 minute timer - too long to stand watching and if I got involved in something else I didn't go back straight away, so rarely 15 minutes! It was my first washing machine though so I was very proud of it. Inherited from my Grannie. 
It had other uses as well - it heated water, and was very useful when I had a 3 week wait for a new water heater (Ascot type) because it heated water which I then emptied into the bath. (No central heating boilers, immersion heaters or showers in those days, for me.)

pollyanna_26

When I was growing up my mum had a gas boiler with a wringer washing machine, She had a pair of wooden laundry tongs for lifting the laundry into the wringer I got a pair when I got my twin tub and they meant transferring to washing to the spinnner was much easier, no water everywhere.

As a child we had a deep butlers sink in a small room behind the kitchen. Mum used to spend hours filling the sink- for some unknown reason it wasn't connected to the plumbing . So she'd be hauling water from the kitchen to the butlers sink for washing and rinsing.

We had an iron mangle in the outside shed and it was my job to turn the handle as mum fed the clothes through. Back them we had an iron range and coal fires in other rooms , Our bedrooms had fireplaces and we had a fire in them in Winter.

I am an environmentalist but I do look back at those lovely coal fires that warmed us and heated the water from the back boiler.

I had coal fires in my own home before moving here.

The only maintainance involved was replacing the fire bricks at the sides. I didn't mind the cleaning out and resetting the fire. I'd grown up with them and it was just normal.

During the powercuts in the 70s when the lights went out they kept us warm. I hsd a gas cooker then but if I hadn't I could have cooked on the fire if needed and still used to make toast on the toasting fork for old times sake. I never had an electric toaster or grill that made such lovely toast.

This pandemic has brought so many memories back of when life was slower and things worked . Life was slower and less dashing about..

A E Houseman would be surprised that all these years on the words of Blue Remembered Hills pop into my head so often.Not everything was perfect but things worked and life seemed less rushed and not full of stuff. There is a decluttering thread and similar things on the Forum and I ask myself how on earth people got so overloaded with stuff they're physically and mentally struggling to deal with it.

If my washing machine does bite the dust I'll remember your example JKO and have an online search. it was amazing how you got such a bargain by going on the bay to assemble exactly what you needed for much less money.

pollyx

bellabella

Can someone point me in the right direction of the board guide for this thread please 

-taff

pollyanna_26 said:

 There is a decluttering thread and similar things on the Forum and I ask myself how on earth people got so overloaded with stuff they're physically and mentally struggling to deal with it.

Well, in my case, I learned from parents to keep things just in case, which is the reason I had so much stuff. It was also the reason that they had so much stuff that we [my sister and I] had to pay people to take it away. They were born during the war and were taught how to mke the most of everything even if that meant collecting things just in case. Thats' how on earth I was physically and mentally struggling with it.

pollyanna_26

-taff said:

pollyanna_26 said:

 There is a decluttering thread and similar things on the Forum and I ask myself how on earth people got so overloaded with stuff they're physically and mentally struggling to deal with it.

Well, in my case, I learned from parents to keep things just in case, which is the reason I had so much stuff. It was also the reason that they had so much stuff that we [my sister and I] had to pay people to take it away. They were born during the war and were taught how to mke the most of everything even if that meant collecting things just in case. Thats' how on earth I was physically and mentally struggling with it.

My mum and her sisters kept things just in case after WW2 taff. It was pretty basic stuff everyday items they'd often struggled to replace during rationing.

I was thinking of all the clothes, make up and other things people buy, never use and one day may end up on the Bay or in charity shops still with their labels. Unused and often forgotten over the years.

I have things like my little Delia Smith hand whisk from decades ago I still use.As the varous offspring went to UNi , College or moved into work. I had to buy them one of those little whisks as they tried to take mine and other staples with them.

There are things I bought in the 80s and 90s still in use.

One of my neighbours on a decluttering mission spent a fortune on books about decluttering but never got round to trying any of the ideas in the books.

pollyx

Nargleblast

bellabella said:

Can someone point me in the right direction of the board guide for this thread please 

If you look at the home page for the OS forum where the threads are listed, near the top is a message about Forum Ambassadors. It looks like they will be replacing Board Guides.