How to Make a Homemade Wringer for Hand-Washing Clothes

Hand-washing clothing can be easier on fabrics and better for the environment, but getting out all the excess water can be challenging. A homemade clothes wringer can do this job for you. It saves water and energy and can be pretty satisfying. You can make this wringer in several ways, and you can try until you find the method that best suits your needs.

Experts recommend this DIY clothes wringer and washer. It uses several large buckets with tight-fitting lids and a regular plunger that you usually use in your bathroom. First, use a drill to cut out a hole in the middle of the lid through which the plunger handle can fit. Then, take one bucket and make multiple holes in the bottom.

Place water and detergent in one of the other buckets and add your clothing. Stand the plunger in this bucket and feed the handle through the lid with the hole in it. Secure the lid and start plunging to agitate the clothes. Drain and replace the water as needed until it rinses clear.

Now, place the wet clothes in the bucket with holes in the bottom. Put the plunger through the lid hole and secure the lid onto the top. Start plunging again without adding more water unless the clothes are still soapy. Keep going until most of the liquid is drained out of the clothes. They will still be damp, so you can hang them up to dry completely.

A hand-crank wringer for clothes features a steel frame with a zinc-plated finish. It has two wooden dowels in the middle for the clothes to go through and can be attached on top of a large bucket with two clamps.

It also has an adjustable screw at the top if you need to apply more or less pressure on the dowels for different thicknesses of clothing. The hand crank is on the side and turns clockwise. You can find these for sale on a variety of different websites.

Other ways of drying and wringing out clean, wet clothes include using the time-consuming hair dryer method, a sort of ineffective rolling pin method or clotheslines/drying racks. Another option is to roll up wet clothing in an absorbent towel tightly; this can help in a pinch, but you will also have a newly wet towel. You can also wring clothing by hand over a sink or try ironing the wet clothes.

You could also buy a mop wringer and attach it to a bucket with clamps and use it to wring out your clothing, but this squeezes the clothes once, and you have to keep doing it. A clothes wringer with rollers can work better because you place the clothes in front of the rollers, turn a handle and the clothes feed through, pushing out more water. This wringer is an old-fashioned tool, but they are becoming more popular as people rediscover the old ways of doing things. These wringers are also great for cloth diapers.