Forum Discussion

garyemunson's avatar
garyemunson
Explorer II
Dec 25, 2019

Washing clothes while underway

Those of you with washer/dryers in their RVS, while a dryer usually needs a lot of electricity, are RV inverters usually big enough to run the washer while underway? Seems like that would be a good use of washer time if it was possible... Start the day with enough water in the tank for the wash cycle then dump when you arrive at your destination.
  • It sounds like the power issues have been addressed.

    What about water? Grey tank capacity?

    I have had two rigs with washer / dryer. I wouldn't buy a third.

    If you spend a lot of time in RV parks with full hookups laundry is not a big deal.

    I found that doing laundry in the RV doubled our water consumption.
  • All of the rv washers I’ve had are not wired through the inverter. Like the AC they are shore power or generator only.
    We used to run it while driving a few times in our old Winnebago. That is until it was running and I hit a rough patch of road. The washer tub somehow hit one of the electric circuit boards in the bottom of the tub area. Several hundred bucks later and the repair guy said not to run it while moving. We haven’t since. All it took was some good bumps.
  • When we bought our RV I read all the manuals - the washer/dryer manual said it uses a maximum of 14 gallons of water per load so we figured it would work well while we were driving. So, one day we decided to try it: put a small load in and hit the road. Everything went well - we even forgot the machine was running. That is until it started its high speed spin cycle: while it's trying to balance the load in the drum it can cause quite a vibration - we were sure we just blew a tire or something, until we remembered the washer was running!
  • You should NEVER have the Washer/Dryer circuit thru an Inverter. The Washer/Dryer can be run with the Genset and Genset should be used for the washer /Dryer. The main thing to remember, is, make sure your Gray Tank is empty before you leave. Depending on the Gray tank size, it may limit how many loads you can do. Most RV's state to leave the Gray valve OPEN when using the Washer, to prevent a sudden overflow into the RV if you fill the Gray tank too fast. It is standard CTA wording. Doug

    I have NEVER seen a WD wired thru an Inverter. If it is, it would have been done by a customer, not the OEM.
  • I wash clothes when stopped, at an rv park or laundramat.
  • I would not do it just because of the high speed spin. I would be afraid of damaging the washer depending upon road conditions. Other than the spin, might be fine.