Tico Style Washer How - To

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Here is a short and simple photo tutorial on how to use a tico-style washing machine. I used this washer for the first 6 weeks while living in Costa Rica so I got lots of practice. While I did manage to sucessfully get my clothes clean using it, I am very grateful to have an automated washer and dryer now hooked up to use. The tico washer usually took at me between half an hour to an hour to get through all of my clothes. Then I would have to go hang them all to dry. The washer I currently have takes just a minute of my time to start a load and does all the washing without my involvement.

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Photos

laundry 1 turn on faucet
To begin, you need to manually turn on the water to fill the wash tub.

laundry 2 add soap and clothes
Once the tub is full and you've added some soap, you can add clothes! This tub is small so I had to work in small batches. It has an agitator but it barely giggled the clothes so most of the time I just swished them around myself.

laundry 3 put into spinner
This little spinner works great to get all of the extra water out of the clothes - IF you balance it properly and close the lid just right to get the switch to turn it on.

laundry 4 fill bucket to rinse
Time to rinse, here's the tool you'll need.

laundry 5 pour water into spinner to rinse
After you've spun the clothes, pour a bucket of clean, non-soapy water over them and then give them a final spin to get rid of excess water.

laundry 6 some spot treating required
As I mentioned earlier, the agitator doesn't really work so if you have a spot on your clothes, you'll need to scrub that out by hand.

laundry 7 dry on clothes line
Very low tech, but gets the job done!