Panda PAN6320W portable washing machine

Another difficulty when trying to live without a car is the task of washing laundry. For several years in this house, I drove to the local laundromat to clean my clothes. It's too far away, though, for me to carry a heavy bag of clothes and detergent. Maybe when I was younger, it could have happened. When I gave up life with a car earlier this year, I needed a solution in my house, besides stomping on clothes in the bath tub, which is what I did a few times during the pandemic.

After both a generic recommendation by armiphlage and a specific model recommendation by rebeccmeister and scrottie, I bought the Panda PAN6320W portable washing machine. It's narrow enough that I could theoretically get it down my 61cm/24inch wide staircase into the basement. I wasn't certain of my ability to keep it from sliding down the stairs by myself. I'm enough of a klutz to doubt my handling of a bulky object down narrow stairs. Instead, I keep it in the kitchen between the counter and the stove. When I need to use it, then I roll it forward to bring it close enough to the sink faucet and drain for hoses to function properly.

I'm very happy with its performance and usability, with one small exception. Because I'm using the kitchen sink instead of the basement utility sink, the edge of the counter is much too thick for me to hook the draining U-turn drain pipe. I have to arrange a kludge solution by using a narrow brick to hook the pipe, but then I also have to angle the brick "just right" to prevent it from falling over when the rush of liquid up the hose tries to pull down the whole contraption. It's a balancing act, unfortunately, so it's not ideal. Someday, if I ever replace the sink and kitchen counter, I'll make sure there's a much narrower lip in front, to make this process easier.

The basin of the washing machine is only 40.8 cubic cm/ 1.34 cubic ft, so it doesn't hold a lot of clothes. It requires more loads of laundry than a normal washer to clean the same quantity of clothes. But that's fine, since it also requires less water and electricity per use. I'm happy with this item, and I would recommend this model to anyone else considering this kind of solution.