Let me tell you about my panda mini-washer
As an apartment dweller, this is a game changer. My current apartment doesn’t have a laundry facility and the closest Laundromat about a 30 min bus ride which is just not practical. The mini-washer is a life saver
The panda mini washer hooks up to the sink, is incredibly lightweight (about 28 pounds, so light even I can lift it) and easy to use.
It has a surprisingly large capacity. The basket from the first picture represents about one and a half loads. The jeans took up a whole load while the rest filled the bin only half way.
Here’s the inside. The left is the washer the right is the spin dryer. Yes, it even drys.
Basically you shove your cloths into the washer, fill it up with water and let it go. I use my shower head to fill it up so it goes faster, the sink hook up took about five minutes to fill the whole tub, with the shower head is is down to a minute an a half. I do it in three wash cycles, a five minute rinse with baking soda, a five minute wash with soap and a three minute rinse with water. You have to drain and refill between each cycle so it’s a little more labor intensive than a traditional washer.
That’s the spin dryer. It’s about half the capacity of the washer so one wash takes about two loads to dry. The spinner is much more effective than I was expecting. A three minute spin gets my cloths about 90% dry. I hang them up to air dry for that last 10%.
The machine cost me about 150$. When you factor in two dollars for the bus, five for the machines (per week), the mini-washer pays for its self after only about six months worth of laundry.
I’m not great at expressing emotion, but I’m hoping you can tell how excited I am. Let me just say that the panda mini-washer is great and I highly recommend it to anyone currently using a Laundromat.
Read this and immediately bought it on Amazon for $180. I spend $15 a week to have my laundry done so this pays for itself in 3 months for me. THANK YOU JESUS.
@ all my nyc pendejas
Oh by the way, they have table top dishwashers that are pretty much the same thing:
This is one of the biggest technological breakthroughs for the everyday homeowner in the current decade: the realization that refrigerators aren’t the only things that can be miniaturized for better affordability and minimal space requirements.
Can you IMAGINE how this is going to change the lives of college students and apartment-dwellers? Or anyone with a lower income who can’t afford a place with “luxury” appliances like dishwashers and laundry machines?
There’s an even cheaper option called the Wonder Wash where you tumble the thing yourself and you’ll have to line-dry the clothes, but it apparently works very well.
As an apartment dweller, I want to spread this.
Save a life
This is all fine and dandy, but… a few caveats.
- I bought one of these mini washers, and it was A LOT of work. Like, a multiple hour hands on activity. Washing the clothes was fine, but the drying aspect sucked.
- They do not come with traditional hested dryers. They do not dry clothes, they just wring most of the water out in a high speed cycle, so clothes are still very damp and cold. They have short cycles that do this, so you really have to stand right by the washer and switch the clothes out every two minutes.
- I have never been able to master the art of air drying clothes. My clothes would finish drying and stiff and uncomfortable? Some people recommended investing in heated drying racks but those didn’t work for me either. I think the clothes were to damp after the spin cycles.
- The worst part was the fact that both my husband and I have a very dark wardrobe, and clothes would come out of the washer dryer COVERED in cat hair and lint. I tried many different methods to try to remove the cat hair but it was honestly so bad that the clothes were unwearable.
In the end, we threw it in the trash. I tried to give it to my friend, but she didn’t want it because I’d shit talked it so much. They are next to impossible to return or get your money back from, the company that sells them SUCKS. I also really tried my best to prevent another friend from buying one two years after I threw out mine, but she bought one, and also threw it in the trash. $180. In the trash.
That said, if you’re in a situation where traveling to wash and dry your clothes is a burden, and you don’t have pets or wear dark clothes, I could see this be a viable option! Just be aware that it’s not perfect and that you may have to get creative and keep trying different things until you find the process that works for you.