Onboard washer/dryer... worth it?

UpperCrust

Building and Learning
For though of you that have washer/dryers inside your camper. What are your thoughts? Do you use them enough to make them worth it? Are they too small to be worth it? We are going to be living out of our camper and my wife really likes the idea but we are a family of 5 and I feel they are too small and take too long to be worth it? Am I wrong?
 

workerdrone

Part time fulltimer
Seems that would be the domain of big class A and 5th wheel campers and not overlanders, but I'm curious to see the responses - we are full timing in our truck camper for 9 months now, I have a 5 gallon bucket and a laundry plunger that I bought on Amazon and used once so far - otherwise coin op laundries have just been too convenient and we carry enough clothing that we can go a couple weeks between laundry without any stress
 

peneumbra

Explorer
We have a W/D in our Class A and it does come in handy, specially when you travel with animals. You need to have enough water to operate the washer, and enough electricity to run them both...
 

Darwin

Explorer
I am confused, didn't the OP get an XP camper? Are they offering a washer and dryer as an option with XP camper?
 

Maninga

Adventurer
There's a bit more space inside his than a normal XP V1 Camper. More akin to a European expedition truck than slide on camper
 

UpperCrust

Building and Learning
Maninga is correct. XP is making a "Camper by the foot" which is custom.

Bajarat, so you would say the washer would be too small so scrap the idea and was clothes in a bucket or similar? That was my thought but I wanted to give my wife some hope.
 

bajarat

Explorer
I had one in a 42' diesel pusher. Okay if you want to wash 1 pair of jeans, 2 Tshirts, socks and some undies. Better to store dirties in a laundry bag and hit a laundromat.
 

ShootingFish

New member
Jed over at CamperVanCulture.com did a trip to Morocco a couple of Christmases ago and he had a really cool system for washing clothes. Check with them. It was a keg type container if I remember correctly.

Also, when do we get to see more pics of the truck!
 

grizzlyj

Tea pot tester
Hi
.
I know some have built a 3kg load washer into their camper, I'm hoping to put a 5kg but top loading washing machine in. The drum still goes the same way round as a front loading machine but it has a smaller foot print, clothes go through a door in the side of the drum.
.
We did buy a very cheap mains powered tiny top loader, with one washer drum and one spinner. Spinner is very worthwhile all by itself, but the basic washer drum relying on us for correct soap and water quantities just meant we used an awful lot of water, like 100's of litres to get the soap out again despite a lot of practice. Better than one campsite washer though that gave me a large shock :(
.
I don't think a dryer is worth it though. A few radiators plumbed into an engines coolant system would work well perhaps?
.
:)
 

Kiomon

Adventurer
I am just seeing this but we have a washer and dryer in our rig and absolutely love the thing. It's a Splendide 2100XC. They ours will wash and dry about 11lbs of clothes and wash 15lbs (no dry cycle). While this doesn't compare with your home washer, it's basically 10 days of clothes for two travelers including towels. For a family of 5, you will probably run two cycles a week.

It also depends on where you want to travel. We traveled across Europe in another vehicle and finding public laundry places was difficult or expensive. Let alone meaning we would have to drive into the center of a city. Was a total pain. The USA has a ton of laundromats, and then they disappear in central and South America, replaced by laundry services of varying quality. What we didn't like was having to find laundry services every week or so. With a family of 5, it's only going to be more pressing.

The machine when on wash only mode is very efficient and easily run off the batteries <500 watts, for the dry mode (we have a condenser dryer model) it pulls about 1000 watts. So you need beefy batteries or shore power to dry. If it's hot and nice outside we run a wash only cycle and hang it up. Wash uses about 10 gallons of water. So you do need some tankage (we carry about 100 gallons).

Overall if you have the space, get one. These little items of comfort make the journey a lot less taxing, which equates to a happier life. Now, I would never put a washer/dryer in our Vanagon Syncro because the space it uses, but if you have a bigger rig, we found the trade-off worth it.
 

Joe917

Explorer
We have a European washer made by Bosch. It spins at a max 1000 rpm so clothes come out almost dry. A clothes line replaces a dryer or if we are driving we crank the heat and hang inside.
Uses very little power as long as you don't use hot water modes as the heating element draws 2700 watts. To use a hot wash we use a cold cycle but supply hot water.
Once we were low on water and thanks to a vomiting cat needed to wash the bedding. The Garmin (piece of crap) found 5 laundry mats, 4 out of business and one with a parking lot too small for the truck(25' 9 tonne). It was easier to find water and do the wash in the truck.
If you stay at organized camp grounds (we try not to) you have access to laundry. We would not be without our washer.
 

pugslyyy

Expedition Vehicle Engineer Guy
So far we have done well using laundromats (in the USA) and lakes/streams (Latin America). It's also easy to rinse out a few items each evening and hang them to dry.
 

srqsup

Observer
We have a Splendide 110 washer dryer combo. It's fairly good sized as in we can fit 5 pairs of jeans. Works great and we love it. And the best part is we never have to stop in creepy laundromats and wate time.

For pics of the set up see twoifoverland.com.
 

photo_i

Explorer
We've been living in our truck for almost 3 years now without washing machine and never regretted not having one (storage space is valuable in small spaces). Laundromats are aplenty everywhere and for small items we have large folding sink in the bathroom. :)
 

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