I’m SO siked!  Last week I finally sent six of my Fuzzi Bunz cloth diapers to someone I found on Diaper Swappers for repair.

These diapers were no longer usable for me since the elastic was all stretched out from use, which caused a lot of leaking.  I mean, who needs a lot of leaking to cause even more laundry!?

I found a seamstress on diaper swappers who replaced the elastic in both legs and the back on all six diapers.

So instead of buying new ones, which would have totaled over $100 ($17.50  each) plus shipping, new life was breathed (or sewn) into my old ones, which were perfectly good otherwise, for only $24.60!

Six diapers can make a big difference to your stash too.  This should give me a days reprieve on doing diaper laundry.  And save me money, since I’m forced to reach for disposables when I run out of clean cloth diapers.

Some of you may be gifted in sewing enough to replace the elastic yourselves or even to sew your own diapers, but for those of us who are challenged in that area, I love that I can go to somewhere like Diaper Swappers to find someone to help me out.

Not only can you get some great deals on second-hand diapers (all I have bought from there have been in great shape) and cloth diaper repair, but you can find all sorts of WHAMS making and selling all sorts of things.

This article is linking to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family.

Today I have a Guest Post on Cloth Diapering 101 over at The Happy Housewife.

She’s got a great blog over there where she talks about how she and her family of nine (she just had her 7th baby last week!) thrives on one income.  She has some great tips on cooking, organizing and managing a household.

On my cloth diapering post I talk about what you need to get started, my favorite products, some websites and resources that I love and even how to save more money with cloth diapering.

One thing I didn’t discuss is washing cloth diapers, which I will briefly touch on here.  I use cold water for all my laundry, even cloth diapers!

For my diapers, I do a pre-wash with no soap, then a regular/full wash with soap and a rinse.  If your machine doesn’t have a pre-wash option, then a short wash without soap and a then a longer wash with soap would work too.

It is also recommended that you use slightly more water than what the load looks like it would need.  So, if it’s a small load, then bump up the water closer to the medium amount of water setting.

Hope that helps!  For all my other cloth diapering tips, go here!

This will probably be shocking to some, but I only wash in cold water.  Everything.  Even my cloth diapers.

And yes, my laundry still comes out fresh and clean.  And I’ve never had problems with staining….well, except my son’s grass stains…need to soak those.

Washing in hot water is really wasteful and expensive.  Treehugger has a great article on washing with cold water with stats like these.

To wit: Washing every load on the hot/warm cycle (in a top loading machine and an electric water heater) for a year is equivalent to burning about 182 gallons of gasoline in a car; in an average (19.8 miles per gallon) car, that’ll get you around 3595 miles. So, wash in hot/warm, or drive almost 3600 miles — same difference.

In The Green Baby Guide’s article, Green Breakthrough:  Save Energy by Washing Diapers in Cold Water she blogs about her venture into washing her diapers with cold water.

But doesn’t washing in hot water kill germs and bacteria?  Everything I read said no–unless your washer has a built-in heater, the hot water in your machine does not get hot enough to kill anything.  Most water heaters are set to 120 degrees.  You’d need a temperature of 160 to kill anything and 212 to actually sanitize your laundry.  Jennifer (Peggy’s co-blogger on Treehugging Family) pointed out that the dryer does get hot enough to kill bacteria.

I usually dry my diapers, sheets and towels fully, in the dryer.  Weather permitting I will hang my diapers out in the sun (which is a natural antibacterial agent) on a retractable clothesline.  The sun does wonders for any stains you have on your diapers too.  Much better for baby’s bum than bleach.  Honestly, I rarely use bleach, it kinda scares me.

As for clothes, I usually dry them in the dryer, unless it’s a something nice or something I want to make sure does not shrink, then I line dry it.  We also have a clothesline in our basement, where our washer/dryer is (note: never buy a house with laundry in the basement if you can help it…so annoying!).  Line drying goes a very long way in preserving the quality of clothes.

We don’t have the space to line dry all of our clothes (and frankly, with kids, there are just too many and that would just take too long!), but we used to line dry everything in Australia (we didn’t have a dryer) and our clothes looked nicer longer.  If you do hang clothes outside, turn them inside out to prevent fading.

Now if I could only get them all folded and quit living out of baskets, I’d be set.

So, how do you wash and dry your laundry?