hose for filling either the wash boiler or a washing machine. This means the arduous carrying of water in buckets.
The remedy is a complete change. The tubs should be out in the room instead of in a corner. There should be more window lighting and a stronger lamp located above the tubs. The laundry trays themselves should be shallower in form and their bases six or eight inches higher. There should be faucets suitable for hose attachment and set high above the rim of the tubs to be out of the way of the washing.
The laundry stove should adjoin the tubs at their left, so that the boiled clothes can be lifted directly into the rinse tub, for the washing processes are usually rounted from left to right. If a washing machine is used, however, it may be desirable to give this location to it. The best location for a washer depends upon the type of the machine and upon the style of wringer, if it be stationary or sliding or swinging.
If one uses portable tubs the bench should be slightly higher than is usual, the exact height being determined by individual experiment. Twenty-four inches is right if the tubs are for rinsing only. If one uses a washboard, twenty to twenty-two inches is preferable. Galvanized iron is better than wood because it is much lighter to handle and because wooden tubs shrink and leak if not used for a period.
When washing in the kitchen it is well to have an elastic mat to stand upon, for this lessens weariness. If a cement floored basement is used a little slatted framework of laths is good to stand upon not only to save weariness but also to keep the feet dry and warm.
If one can possibly afford it a washer is to be substituted for the back-breaking washboard. A hand power washer entails as much wearisome work as hand rubbing. Test it by attaching a spring-balance to the lever of a hand power washer filled with water and clothes. Pull on the balance instead of direct on the lever. The handle moves through an arc of twenty-eight inches and the pull is twenty pounds as the balance will show. Multiplying two and one-third feet (the arc of movement) by twenty (the pounds of pull) you get forty-six and two-thirds foot-pounds of work for every stroke of the handle. The average is thirty strokes per minute. This means fourteen hundred foot-pounds every minute. An ordinary washing is seldom less than three fillings of the machine at ten minutes per filling.
The real advantages of a washer are that scalding, sterilizing water can be used and the boiling process can be omitted, and that the application of power can be taken from weary woman's back and arms and tranferred to the stronger muscles of a man, or to mechanical power.
Some form of power washer is what every home laundress deserves. The cheapest is water powder and this is available only in cities where there is unlimited water under high pressure. These do not have a motor wringer.
The woman of the farm or village can attach her hand power washer adding the proper wheel to carry a belt, to the farm gasoline or oil engine. This, too, means wringing with a wringer turned by hand. For twenty dollars to thirty-five dollars a splendid power washer is available with an attached, motor-driven wringer. The higher priced ones have also a wash bench. The power wringers are stationary, swinging or sliding.
The city woman can have that best of all servants, electricity. A one-sixth horse power motor can be attached by a belt to a hand-power washer. This is shown in a photograph on the foregoing page. Machine, motor and accessories, without wringer, cost twenty-eight dollars.
For forty-five dollars to one hundred dollars one can get excellent electric washers with power wringers included and the saving of woman-power for higher uses will justify the investment. The cost of current is very small, usually two to four cents an hour. A fifty dollar washer should last at least ten years, which is five dollars a year for depreciation. Counting interest on the investment of fifty dollars this is three dollars yearly. Current cost varies but ten cents a week, a generous allowance.
