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rayyy
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 10:31am
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Boy,I'm learning alot.All the little things that can go wrong.Things that need to be tweeked and things that have worked well as expected.But over all I am living very comfortable.The decission to move here to the cabin during the winter has been a challenge.Abnormally warm weather has made it extreamly muddy here.Like 8 inches of creamy penut butter!I know now I'm gonna need alot more gravel brought in this summer than expected.
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groingo
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 11:00am
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Been there, have been in my place (200 square foot)just short of a year and just tried the "off grid" myself and found many shortfalls for which in my case I decided it would be more cost effective for now to use the grid as a backup till I got things resolved.
Mud, had some here too, so the places I walk to keep from falling on my backside I simply put hay down on the trail but it sounds like your situation calls for more.
Lets hear more of your problems and resolutions.....always good to compare notes.
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Rifraf
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 12:53pm
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I've fought the gravel mud issues as well, put my surface gravel on my driveway several months ago and it seemed perfect, firm with no give.. until all the rain and snow melt that is.. my small car doesnt cause any issues but the backhoe and delivery vehicles caused ruts and embedded lots of my gravel.. will be ordering two more truck loads of gravel, this time 2 inch instead of 1 inch.
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trollbridge
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 02:57pm
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Quoting: rayyy Like 8 inches of creamy penut butter!
Boy...I like peanut butter, but not that much!
It REALLY does help to have a base of LARGE stone and then when that is solid top it with the smaller more "vehicle friendly" stone.
Good luck...it is sloppy in many, many places this winter.
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rayyy
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 03:43pm
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Wellll,,,my creek is about 200 feet away and once it gets above freezing,I plan on pumping water into a 250 gallon tank out on the poarch.But for now I just fetch 2 - 5 gallon jugs of water when I need it.It's kindof labor intensive!Also,the washer uses 16 gallons of water for one load.That's 2 trips to the creek and back.Alot more than I expected.I was figuring that a 100 pound tank of propane would last me a month,not! just 2 to 3 weeks.Also the fact,creek water although nice and clear is hard water.It doesn't allow shandpoo and soap to lather up very well.Have had some issues with the propane frig needing a full 12 volts to power up the electronic controls.
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neb
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 03:59pm
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rayyy
Very interesting what other life experiences can you tell us about off grid living???
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TomChum
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:08pm
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Wow, only 2 months and you already have to wash clothes? 
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sabiggs
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:24pm
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I'm enjoying your stories. Living off grid is very admirable. Props to you for sure. I bet that lifestyle, though much more difficult and involved, is so much more satisfying.
It is so strange to me to hear about everyone having rough weather this year. Here in the NE, we've had the tamest winter I can remember. I haven't used my snowblower once (and this is after I had to shovel my roof 5 times last year). This also comes after a devastating hurricane (Irene) hit in August and then we had two feet of snow before October was over.
Best of luck and please keep us posted with your interesting anecdotes.
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rayyy
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:50pm
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It's really cramped in the cabin.It's hard designning and building a small living space for efficiency.Always wishing i had a little more room.One things for sure,It's really been nice having the money I use to pay out to the landlord,utility company,gas company,water and sewer dept,bording stables.
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naturelover66
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 07:31pm
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Sounds great rayyy.... I paid 400 this month for just electric and gas. Youre living the dream! I envy you.
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groingo
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# Posted: 25 Feb 2012 08:32pm
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What size place do live in, 10 by 20 or larger or smaller etc?
Walls 2 by four or 2 by six?
Insulation in walls and ceiling or floors?
Dual pane windows?
Heat....wood, propane or other?
Do you have on grid power access?
Out house or bathroom....how disposed of?
Are you keeping records of energy use or notes for things to upgrade?
Is your stream big enough to possibly generate power for you?
How do you store food, fridge, ice box etc?
These are questions I deal with every day for nearly a year now as I try to constantly improve but it must be cost effective so much so I either invent or it build myself.
All I know is when you get the living space right and it is comfortable without breaking a sweat year round you have made it.
With me the criteria is that I must use little but still must live comfortably, right now I am using 0.66 kwh power a day, wood use for the stove is down 90% (1/2 cord this winter) over last season (got a Waterford stove properly sized) and on and on.....it is all about constant improvement to achieve a goal.
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cabingal3
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# Posted: 26 Feb 2012 12:26am
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i know this sounds gross.we are planning to live off the grid too rayyy...when we live up in the boonies and basically home bound pretty much in the winter...i plan on washing our clothes in a utility sink.i plan on washing out the crotch,underarms and any food stains and hanging them up by the woods stove.we will save a good set of clothes for going to town in.
i have seen it said u can put your dirty clothes in a garbage can that is loaded up on the back of your truck and add the water and soap and put the lid on and make sure the garbage can is secured so as to not fall over.
go to town.your clothes are getting agitated as u drive down the road.come home and drain out and rinse and hang up.
i can not convince hubby to do this one.we may have a washer in the summer.
it is good to hear how long your propane tank is lasting u.we have propane tanks out there now but once we live out there we will have wood stove.i figure the wood stove will help keep us warm and dry our clothes and i can cook food on top of it thusly saving our propane.
i do know what u mean about feeling cramped.me and the mister would have lots of room if we lost weight.we are working on this one.Its just me and him and the cabin is 156 sq.feet.it seems to be big enough.we are adding a living room this summer.so it will get bigger.He was talking about building a bed platform with doors...so we could store alot under the bed and have it out of site.i know it will be a tight fit once we get all our stuff out there.
Gar did build a storage loft so we can store more things in our cabin.and we have a futon...we store alot under it.
we cook with propane but i try to make simple meals so we dont have to use it too much.
of course i am not there full time yet as u are...i will say in the summer we had a solar shower bag and we still have that and it sure did work good.
when we were at the cabin this last time for four days.i got some hot water on the stove top and a wash cloth for us both to freshen up.we put l.e.d. stick up lites in our kitchen.they work good.we also have oil lamps and l.e.d. lanterns and a coleman lantern.we use those for lite.
this is wonderful to hear of your experiences even though they are tuff ones.
i hope things improve .it just takes tweaking i suppose.i would love to be living out there like u are.
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rayyy
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# Posted: 26 Feb 2012 07:05am
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Thanks folks.You all are very encourging.I appreciate that.My cabin is 20 feet wide by 30 feet long but I have only got the one end done.The kitchen/bathroom end where all the water supply is.It's 12 feet by 20.That's the part I'm living in for the winter.The rest of it is just a empty shell for now.(This summers project)Walls are 6 inches but not insulated yet.I plan on using the other 18 feet for living/dinning/bed room space in the summer months.Closing that off during the winter to the kit/bath space.The wood cook stove I have is actually to big for just heating the kit/bath end.So I'm using propane for that.I have a norcold brand frig that runs on propane.gas range.12 volt lighting.Combination of LED and floresant.Place is wired up for both 12 volt and 120 volt.2000 watt honda generator.(best investment i ever made)It allows me to have my 32 inch LED HD tv.Computer,microwave,toaster,vaccuum,dvd,all the modern toys in life!lol.duelpane glass windows yes.No grid power.The saw dust composting toilet.(works good!)Stream isn't big enough.I do have one of those 400 watt windmills and a 60 watt solar panel system to play around with once time permits.Granted I am spending money to by propane and gasoline ,$200.oo a month for winter time.I'm finding that I run the gen 3-4 hours a day anyways so I just keep my bat charger on all the time.It's keeping up just fine.Constant trial and error.Improving on what you got.Everything you do adds to your progress to live happy and comfortably.
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trollbridge
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# Posted: 26 Feb 2012 01:21pm
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Quoting: rayyy It's really cramped in the cabin.It's hard designning and building a small living space for efficiency.Always wishing i had a little more room
I was going to say it was time to add on but then I read this
Quoting: rayyy I appreciate that.My cabin is 20 feet wide by 30 feet long but I have only got the one end done.
and the perfect thing is that you don't even need to add on...ya just got to finish it this summer. Forgive me for not remembering but are you there alone? 
What you are doing is very, very cool and it is interesting hearing about both the challenges and the triumphs Congratulations!
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cabingal3
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# Posted: 26 Feb 2012 10:44pm
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Quoting: rayyy My cabin is 20 feet wide by 30 feet long
thats a nice size cabin...and u are working on making it bigger.
Rayy-u actually have it going on pretty good.eventually u will have a really good place there.and alot of modern convienances.thanks for filling in the details.i really appreciate u expounding on your trial and errors cause this is what we will eventually be going thru too when we finally move to our cabin.
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dk1393
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# Posted: 27 Feb 2012 07:30am
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We use a 5 gal bucket with a hole drilled in the lid and a plunger for laundry at the cabin. It works really well. I was surprised how clean the cloth came out.
http://www.thefoosers.com/FiveGallonBucket/clotheswasher.html
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rayyy
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# Posted: 27 Feb 2012 04:43pm
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Sure,I remember my mom doing wash with the old scrubb board and wash tub(50's)ringer washer (60's)modern washer machine(70's).for mom,dad and 8 kids.Wash and ironing,that's what I remember,never ending chore.I remember dad building a nice set of cloths lines.You can't beat fresh air dried cloths!
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nicalisa
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# Posted: 27 Feb 2012 11:34pm - Edited by: nicalisa
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One of the most useful skills I learned while living in Nicaragua was how to hand wash clothes on the lavendaro (wash tub with washboard) After I realized that ummm, more substantial unmentionables stood up better, and a scrub brush is a necessary accessory for real mud.
I was given many hours of instruction by many observing women of my village sitting in folding chairs and calling out instructions as I scrubbed. too much soap (we used hard bars that we rubbed on the clothes before the washboard process was started) too much water...and finally after nearly 1 year, I had it right from the experts opinions
off the grid living is what everyone did there, with some cool handy modifications car battery wired to a small TV in the town square for an hour nightly where we (the whole community of 73) all dragged our chairs to watch Esmarelda...a spanish night novela (soap opera). It was fun to learn how to do with what we had, and life was somehow devoid of the non necessary, and richer in the relationships.
I admire what you are doing right now and look forward to our turn!
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cabingal3
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 06:06am
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Quoting: dk1393 We use a 5 gal bucket with a hole drilled in the lid and a plunger for laundry at the cabin. It works really well. I was surprised how clean the cloth came out
Hey.thats pretty cool.i would do this.thanks for the good tip.
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cabingal3
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 06:12am
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i have done lots of laundry by hand.When we lived out on five acres and did not drive.i had an old wash tin and a wash board.i have a washboard.thats some back breaking work for an oldie.i dont know if i could do that anymore.i use to hang all our clothes on the bushes and trees till Gar made me a clothes line.i love clothes dried outside.the towels are so absorbable and the smell so fresh.nothing more wonderful than tucking yourself in a bed with sheets and pillow cases smelling so like the out of doors.that little bucket /plunger set up-i could do that even in the winter.
Has anyone hung wet clothes up on an outside clothes line in the winter?do they really dry even though frozen?? ours would freeze up in our woods if we hung the clothes outside in the winter.
nicalisa
i love the experiences u shared with us...while u were in Nicaragua .
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Anonymous
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 08:45am
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Living the dream, living the dream. My property does not have year round water which scares me kind of to moving there. Plus it gets that Peanutbutter stick to you shoes/ 4x4's spinning out Mud every time it rains, even in the summer !!!!
But Rayy reading your words of hauling the water from the creek, living off the land. Your doing it, keep doing what us city folks stuck in the concrete jungles can't do YET.
Please keep writing your experiences, we are reading.
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rayyy
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 06:00pm
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Yes,I'm so lucky to have water.That's the main reason I bought this land.Iv'e got 2 acres of woods and the creek and 2 acres of pasture for the horses.I bought a small submersible pump in which I built into a filter basket around it.I'm gonna set that in the creek,power it up with my generator,pump through 200 feet of garden hose to a 4x4 poly tank Iv'e got on the porch.I will only fill it when the creek is running clean,treat it with clorox bleach and Wah-Lah,,,300 gallons of clean fresh water for use.Excluding winter time because frozen garden hoses are a real pain,thuss the 5 gallon toats for now.lol.I'm hoping that next year,I can heat the enclosed porch where the tank is kep than maybe fill it up on a nice day above freezing.I really think 300 gallons will last me a month.Will see.
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tnky03
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 10:12pm
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Quoting: dk1393 We use a 5 gal bucket with a hole drilled in the lid and a plunger for laundry at the cabin. It works really well. I was surprised how clean the cloth came out.
I just recently saw these online and may try it. The wringing out seems would be the hard part. I'm looking for a hand crank wringer. Nice to know I am not the only one who would consider such a thing.
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tnky03
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 10:41pm
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Quoting: cabingal3 i love clothes dried outside.the towels are so absorbable and the smell so fresh.
Do you use fabric softner or make your own to keep them soft? I'm getting ready to start doing laundry at home and hope to avoid the stiff, scratchy towels I remember from way, way back. I think I've missed my washer/dryer worse than anything since we've made a "return to the land". After driving 20 mi. to the laundry all winter and now with gas going so high I am ready to start washing the bucket way and dry ours in the breeze. My hubby is going to put up a line like the many Amish in our area have, one with a pulley to save some steps. At 50+yrs. I have to try to conserve energy, LOL!
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hattie
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# Posted: 28 Feb 2012 10:49pm
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Quoting: cabingal3 Has anyone hung wet clothes up on an outside clothes line in the winter?do they really dry even though frozen?? ours would freeze up in our woods if we hung the clothes outside in the winter.
I have tried hanging our clothes outside in the freezing weather but they don't seem to dry for me. They freeze solid and that's about it. Maybe if I kept them out overnight or longer they would dry but I've never had much luck. I dry our clothes inside during the winter on our indoor clothes line in the utility room.
Quoting: tnky03 Do you use fabric softner or make your own to keep them soft? I'm getting ready to start doing laundry at home and hope to avoid the stiff, scratchy towels I remember from way, way back.
Fabric softener will definitely help soften your towels if you line dry them, but they still won't be soft and fluffy like out of the dryer. Our bathroom towels are the only thing I regularly put in our dryer. Since that is all I put in, they dry really fast so I don't use much electricity with them but I do like to have soft towels. If you don't want to use fabric softener, regular vinegar works pretty well. It isn't as good as the store bought fabric softener but it definitely helps and doesn't use any chemicals.
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tnky03
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# Posted: 29 Feb 2012 12:09am
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Thanks, Hattie. I guess I'll just have to try line drying them and see how they turn out. For sure sheets are really nice and fresh line dried. I remember how fresh they seemed.
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cabingal3
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# Posted: 29 Feb 2012 12:10am
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Quoting: hattie I dry our clothes inside during the winter on our indoor clothes line in the utility room.
thanks hattie
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rayyy
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# Posted: 29 Feb 2012 05:07pm
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I think I'm gonna try washing by hand .It would be much more efficient use of my water if I got to lug it up from the creek right now 10 gallons at a time.Outdoor drying is great if there is a breeze to fluff dry your cloths for you.Kinda like mother natures substatute for tumble drying in the dryer.
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groingo
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# Posted: 29 Feb 2012 05:49pm
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A few weeks ago I washed my clothes in a five gallon bucket with a toilet plunger with a few 1/2 inch relief holes drilled in it and it worked great and only took a few minutes.
A word of warning when drilling relief holes in the plunger head, drill them so it blows water out the side and not up or you'll get a wet face otherwise, do the wash, and rinse twice, ring out and hang....made me wonder why I hadn't done this ages ago, oh well, better late than never!
Also, long as you have a creek you might want to make a cooler using cold river water and an ice box, just fill half way up, put your food (typically leftovers or something you will eat in a day or two) in zip lock backs and chuck in the water (should be no warmer than 40 degrees) and close the lid and keep the ice box outside if you can otherwise the water can warm voiding the purpose of keeping things cool.
"Sometimes the best things are right in front of us, that's how we miss them so easily"!
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neb
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# Posted: 1 Mar 2012 10:52pm
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Quoting: groingo A word of warning when drilling relief holes in the plunger head, drill them so it blows water out the side and not up or you'll get a wet face otherwise, do the wash, and rinse twice, ring out and hang....made me wonder why I hadn't done this ages ago, oh well, better late than never
I would of never thought of that either kinda of funny reading your post...
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