Surprising Results with a “Real” Off-Grid Washing Machine

(Video includes a special announcement!)

Sometimes the math adds up and it is worth a shot. Hence we thought we would take a try at getting a used washing machine working off our solar system. Shannon did the research and found me some YouTube videos to reference, which helped get the gears moving. With 6 children, daily homeschooling, 3 meals/day, and Texas heat Shannon just doesn’t have a lot of extra time or energy. She has been going to the laundromat for time and water reasons on/off over the years. Lately, it has become a weekly standard and she spends $20 to $25 a week there.

Of course, over a year that is enough money to buy a lot of other off-grid tools or put towards water tanks, etc.

So we thought we would share the results of our attempt with you. We picked up a used high efficiency washing machine from someone we ran across on Facebook Marketplace who does appliance repair in the Valera, TX area (Heartland Appliance & Small Engine Repair and General Contractor). I installed a new automatic demand diaphragm pump to give the machine the water pressure it needs… and it worked!

I was a bit shocked at the power usage. It only uses about 100 watt hours per load. That’s like running a 100 watt light bulb for one hour. Of course, it doesn’t use the power evenly. I checked it on a Kill-a-watt and power usage oscillates a lot as the motor moves in various directions. However, in general it is using less than 200 watts at a time. Spin cycle, as you can imagine, is the most intense but only spikes near the end of it up to around 500-800 watts for a fairly short burst. The rest of the spin cycle seems to hover lower.

On a large load it uses about 18 gallons of water. We’ve also measured it once at 14.5 gallons. The clothes come out much cleaner than our hand washing (probably because of the spinning getting the dirty water out better than our hand wringing). And it means while we have water it saves us the trip to the laundromat. We are working on increasing our fresh water storage supplies. However, in the meantime, the savings both in time and stress on Shannon is worth it!

Of course, this is a non-essential luxury in many ways… but so is going to the laundromat. At the same time, with our health struggles and other factors it was worth a shot. We are thankful for the break it provides.

We hope you find this information useful in case you ever decide to setup your own off-grid laundromat! Let us know if you have any questions.