DOING LAUNDRY WITHOUT ELECTRICITY
Doing the laundry is dull in the best of times, but when you’re stuck with a pile of clothes in the middle of a power outage, or if you’ve gone camping and you’re in a tent in the middle of the woods, it can be an impossible task. That is where machines like the Drumi come in.
How do you do the laundry when there is no power to operate the washing machine?
Your regular household dhobi from any Indian village will laugh at that question. He may even ask you, rather innocently, what a washing machine is. You see, he and his forefathers have operated manual washing machines for generations. They also call them arms and hands. All they do is bundle up their clothes, go to the nearest water body – often a lake – and let their hands get to work.
But if you’re one of those people who have never washed clothes with your bare hands, and if you’d like to have a washing machine that does not rely on power, the Drumi from Yirego is your answer.
It is a compact washing machine that can clean around six to seven garments without the need for a power outlet, a generator, or even a sunny day to feed a solar panel.
How does it work, you wonder? Well, by means of a foot pump.
As long as you have it in you to keep operating the foot pump at the base of the Drumi, the machine will spin your clothes and rinse them and wash them and what not. A release valve on the underside of the machine can be activated by a single button press to drain away dirty water, and then your machine becomes a drier, or a salad spinner for your garments to wring out the last bits of moisture before you hang them out to dry.
The Drumi is great for camping, when you will most likely be stuck in the wild without access to power. But it is also a good idea for home emergency use, for times when the power goes out on you. If you’re a on a budget, operating the foot pump is definitely more economical than operating an electric washing machine. For students and single people with small wardrobes, this is a perfect machine because doing the laundry is nothing more than doing a few calf-presses while standing. Easy-peasy.
You can own the Drumi for as little as $US 129.
