Best Cheap Portable Washing Machine for Apartments

Even tiny apartments can enjoy the benefits and conveniences of a small, portable washing machine, which will allow for laundry to be taken care of right at home, so tenants don't have to visit the local laundromat, or go back and forth to the laundry room if their building has its own.

While the convenience of being able to do laundry without having to run errands all over the place is obvious, these units can also save money in the long run compared to coin operated machines. Plus, there will no longer be a need to save as many quarters as possible. Minor convenience, but great nonetheless.

They're also great for RV camping, although a few of the units operate manually with a hand crank, making them great for camping trips, power outages, or other situations. They're also fantastic for college students, as a great dorm rooms appliance.

Compact units like these are also great for smaller clothing collections; doing laundry more frequently means you won't have to wait until it's "worth it" to take care of things. This is particularly useful for workout clothing, which need to be washed frequently, instead of buying multiple outfits, just to avoid washing one outfit at a time.

Portable washing machines work a little differently from one another, depending on the design of the manufacturer. Some work by hooking up to an existing faucet of some kind, filling up the chamber through a hose, and then draining through a second hose once the process is done. Others work by allowing manual filling of the chamber with water, and use a simple drop-down hose to drain into a bathtub. These work great if you have a detachable shower head, making them easy to fill up.

Surprisingly, some of these compact washers operate much faster than a typical washing machine, finishing the cycle in just a few minutes. This may sound strange, but remember that this excludes the initial process of filling up the unit with water, which takes a lot longer with typical built-in units. Also, some portable washers skip the rinse cycle, since after draining the water, they must be filled manually again, after which they can be run again without detergent to rinse the clothing.

After finishing, the clothes can be hung up to dry. Keep in mind that some portable washing machines have no spin cycle (the final process of a typical washing machine, which leaves clothes damp instead of dripping), which makes hang drying slower, taking up to 24 hours or more. This can be helped by wringing out the clothes, or buying a separate spin dryer, or finding a portable washing machine with a  built-in spin cycle.

That said, here are some of the best compact, portable washing machines for apartments, all of which get rave reviews, particularly the Panda Portable Washing Machine, or check out Wonderwash and Laundry Pod for hand powered washing machines for power outage use:

If you're looking for a little more convenience in the laundry process, then an integrated spin cycle is probably a prerequisite. Although buying a separate spin machine is an option, and allows for people to run both machines at the same time, it might be more convenient to buy an all-in-one unit, which will likely end up costing about the same, and taking up the same amount of space, too.

Luckily, there are plenty of options, with Avanti and Haier coming in as some of the best-reviewed choices available. Below are some of the best portable washing machines with an integrated spin cycle available:

Once you get all the clothes nice and clean, you'll need somewhere to hang them. Plus, if you have one of the wash-only models without its own spin cycle, you might want to invest in a dedicated spin cycle unit, which will draw the vast majority of the water from the clothing, leaving them damp, but not dripping wet. They'll dry out much faster this way, which can generally be done overnight, depending on how much circulation the room is getting, and how warm it is.

Drying racks come in thousands of varieties, of course, so click on the options below to do some more shopping at Amazon, and check out the Spin Dryer, which is a popular companion piece to any portable apartment washer to speed up the drying process:

The great thing about upgrading to a newer, fancier home with its own integrated washing machine within the unit for wonderful convenience is that your old portable washing machine can be left behind, as a fun surprise for the next tenant, or donated as a gift to someone living in a dorm, a small apartment, or driving across the country for fun. Plus, you can always get rid of it on eBay, where anyone will be happy to pick it up from you.

So pick one up today, and enjoy the convenience.