I don't know what kind you are speaking of exactly (single combined machine
or stackers), but a bit over ten years ago, I lived in London and the woman who
I subleased a flat from owned a german (miele, I think) front loading
washer/dryer. The same machine (small capacity) both washed and dried clothes. In my
view, it was superior (in effectiveness) to toploading machines for washing
clothes, but inferior to conventional machines in drying them. So, more often
than not, we ended up line drying our stuff.
A year and a half ago, many similar machines were featured in the US Dept of
Energy's Solar Decathalon (which, incidently, featured a eco friendly
retrofitted modern A/S). At that, a number of entries (from competing universities)
featured the combined washer/dryer units, because they are exceptionally
water/energy efficient. These are all made in Europe, are verrrrrry expensive (@
$1k), small, and generally outperform machines on resource efficiency (even US
products with Energy Star qualification). However, the folks I spoke to on
the decathalon teams agreed--they still don't quite dry clothes as well as
conventional dryers--but it might be an effective compromise, since they are nice,
efficient and small. And as far as washing clothes, that little thing got me
hooked, I now own a front loader as my main home washing machine and would
never return to toploaders.
That said, I don't think you could ever run this while boondocking, so the
efficiency might be moot if you had to have hookups anyways, though the space
savings might make it worthwhile. Bear in mind, though, it still is a large
thing to fit in a trailer (but I could see it taking the place of, say, the
dresser in our Safari double).
On the other hand, the manual machine I linked to before is much smaller
(something that could fit, say, on a kitchen shelf). I have never heard of
anything like that metal one you described. I like the idea of getting a system to
clean clothes so you can take less and avoid laundromats--but I can't figure
out if these manual things really work--or are durable enough to last more than
1-2 wash cycles...
To all of you who emailed me publically and privately about your laundry
experiences, I think we may have a thing here! Seems A/S road grunge brings out
the dirty (but thankfully not risque) memories!
Mary