How To Do Laundry While Living in an RV Full Time

We are finally getting our pattern down. We go to a campground, stay for three weeks, then move on to the next one. Our first couple of days are usually spent lounging around, exploring the campground, and figuring out what facilities are worth using. Every day we dirty new clothes though and for that reason, we have to constantly be washing laundry. When we first started this journey, we would go to the local laundromat at the campground, but once winter hit and the laundromat was closed where we were, we had to come up with another option. That is why we ended up getting the Giantex Portable Clothes Washer. It has worked well for us for the past six months.

Here is our setup: We don’t have hot water in our RV quite yet as we have to replace the water heater. For that reason, we’ve never taken a shower in our RV. Instead, we always use the campground facilities and even after we replace the water heater, we will probably continue to use the campground showers since it allows for a longer shower, a hotter shower, and with me being tall, it gives me a lot more room. When we got the Giantex Portable Clothes Washer, we just put it in the shower basin and it fits perfectly.

To use the washer, we have to fill up a bucket from the sink, but as soon as we can get to a hardware store, I’m going to get a short hose that will screw onto the shower head and have its own on/off knob so we can fill it that way. The washer is plugged into power above the height of the washing machine, so water will never flow down the power cord and short out. Clothes are added to the washer with detergent, and its turned on. It spins for awhile (it can be pretty loud), and when it is done, about a third of the laundry is put in the right compartment that spins it dry. After it is set spinning well, we add some water to the spin side which also rinses out the soap. When its done, we hang up our clothes inside and let them dry.

The spin cycle does not get the clothes completely dry, but gets enough water out that they don’t have to be rung out and no water drips while its hanging. We have gotten good at attaching bungee cords to the cabinets in the living room are of our RV so we can make a spider web network of cords to hang clothes on. Its not the best solution, but it works pretty well. We have several fans going which helps keep air moving and dries the clothes faster.

We usually let the clothes hang overnight, and then in the next morning take them down and fold them. The goal is to do this every day until we are caught up and then continue to do one load of laundry every day to wash our previous day’s clothes. If we keep on top of it, we should rarely have the piles of dirty clothes we sometimes acquired in the past. Make it the last thing we do every night before going to bed, and each morning we can wake up, fold some clothes and be done with it.

We are still learning how to get the rhythm down though, so some days no laundry is done, and others have far too much to do. Once we get in a pattern and keep it going though, it should all fall into place as get into our grooce and make our life easier, cleaner, and more predictable.

We have so far had no issues with using the Giantex Portable Clothes Washer, it has never not worked, never had any problems. We’ve been using it since December of 2017 and its done exactly what it is designed to do. The price does vary a lot on Amazon though, sometimes it is just under $100, sometimes as high as $120. If you are not in a rush, follow the link and watch it for a few days to see if it goes up or down before buying one.

Amazon Link: Giantex Portable Clothes Washer