I wash sheets and liners at home in my front loader. I send my blankets out as they are too big. I use Woolite.
Last summer I stuffed all the dirty blankets into a 100 gallon water trough and dumped some Nikwax in there. Every day I swished them around. This soaked off all the gunk. Hauled the suckers home, used my oversized front loader, again with Nikwax, double rinse them, hang them up in the sun to dry.
Thank you everybody for the replies! Unfortunately there is no laundry mat where I am located. I always hang my blankets in the aisleway but they Take a week or so to dry that way. Perhaps itās because our climate is so damp all the time. I have eight blankets in his size so I end up changing blankets quite often when itās raining or snowing. I just canāt handle having a wet blanket on him so I usually change it in the morning and at night. I definitely need to re-waterproof my blankets and put a rain sheet on top when itās pouring rain so he doesnāt get the blanket wet.
That number of blankets is going to be unmanageable. Get yourself a couple of good waterproof sheets for now. Also when you say wet are your blankets soaking through to the skin or just wet on the outside? If the horse is dry underneath the blanket is fine.
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No heās never been wet under a blanket I just mean that heās been standing in the rain and the top of the blanket gets wet and yucky. Do you have some good rain sheets but Iāve washed them so many times the wrong way they do need to be re-waterproofed. None of my blankets actually soak through but I feel like are not as waterproof as when I first got them. Having eight blankets allows me to usually have at least one thatās dry. Sometimes I have to bring it down to my house to dry because I donāt have a heated tack room.
Is your horse stalled or 24/7 turnout?
Quickest way to dry a blanket is to bring the horse in out of the rain, toss the horse a flake of hay and walk away. Come back 30 minutes later the horsesā internal furnace will have dried the blanket, take stiff brush and clean off any remaining dirt.
I send all my blankets off to our local Horse Blanket cleaning/repair service in the spring to be cleaned/repaired/re-waterproofed as needed. Or June. Or August, whenever I get sick of seeing them piled in the garage.
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Thank you! My horse has a large stall with a large attached turn out but he is never locked in our styles are set up that way.I live in a smaller island and there is no cleaning service.
Itās a waste of time and effort to change a blanket just because it is wet on the outside. If the blanket is dry on the inside and the horse is warm and dry underneath then the blanket is doing its job and you can leave it on for a week or more if you want.
The warmth of the horse helps the breathable membrane keep the water out. The blanket will often feel damper after itās off the horse and cold.
Rotating 8 blankets and changing them twice a day when they are still dry is just making excessive work for yourself IMHO.
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Dude.
you are WAY overthinking this 
horses produce a LOT of body heat, and the dampness you feel under the blanket after itās removed from the horse and sits a while, will not be present after it gets *on * the horse.
You can check this yourself by putting your hands under the blanket, and feeling around. The outside may be soaked, but if your horse has dry fur, you are fineā¦Then take it off to ride, feel it after riding, and it will feel damp underneath.
Jist put it back on. Trust me, unless youāve jacked up the waterproofing, it will be dry and toasty in about a half an hour.
if you are really worried, put gobs of hay under the blanket. Between horse and fabric. It will make a warm insulated air layer, and it will allow the underside to dry faster. The hay falls out and your horse has a late night snack
I washed mine in December, so it was cold but itās still sunny for me. I hung it over the fence and used the hose and brush and some detergent. Then turned it over and did the inside. Then I let it dry on the fence and turned it over a few times. It stayed sunny for two days and that was long enough to dry it completely. I hung it up in the barn instead of boxing it for a week just in case there was any trapped moisture.
Edit to add: As others have said, as long as the inside of the blanket is dry then itās no problem. When my mare wore hers turned out, it was usually frozen and damp on the outside early in the morning but if I checked in the afternoon, all the moisture was gone. The moisture should roll off, evaporate, whatever, as your horse warms up. If my horse felt wet under the blanket, Iād change the blanket and even towel her off before putting a fresh dry one on.
Detergents are the wrong thing to wash waterproof items with - this includes laundry detergent, wool wash and any other types of detergents made for washing clothes. Detergent is designed to attract water molecules and it will ruin the waterproofing - sometimes very quickly. If you donāt want to buy the expensive stuff made for washing waterproof items, then use pure soap. Iām not in the US so I donāt know what brands you have access to - just make sure it is 100% pure soap.
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Agreedā¦ but this has been mentioned 100x over on this site and it is sound advice. Yet folks will come on and say they washed with Tide or some other commercial cleaner and the waterproofing is āJust fineā. You canāt stop folks from doing what theyāre going to do.
These are likely the same folks who will bash a blanket manufacturer because their waterproofing failed after the first washā¦ never making the connection.
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Question: what counts as pure soap? Would liquid Castille soap or Dr Bronnerās be OK? What should I look for on the label to make sure there is no detergent?
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I brush off any dirt, dried mud, hair, Head down to the local laundromat, Rambo wash in hand.I wash with cold water in big washer, haul home to dry, on gate that has been preinspected for bird-doo.
I have never left hair in the machine.
Some sheets are 6-7 years old and still waterproof, ditto with heavy blankets.
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OP, if you donāt have access to a larger commercial washer, you may try what I did when I first started out.
Get a large rubbermaid containerā¦ the ones that are some 50" long by 30" wide. After dry brushing and pre-treating your blankets as Iāve described before, put one in that container and fill with warm water and Rambo blanket wash. Then agitate with a toilet plunger. Let sit 15 minutes, turn, then agitate againā¦ and repeat, and repeat. You can brush the surcingles with a mud brush and spray white vinegar on them while youāre doing so.
Rinse in a similar fashion. Fill the tub, agitate, swap out for fresh water until it runs clear. Then hang to dry.
Not sure if I mentioned it before, but you can hang your horse blankets over your shower curtain bar, if itās secure enough.
Let the initial drip dry process happen out of doors though.
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Scribbler, I think either should be OK, but just make sure it says āpure soapā or āpure castille soapā on the front of the packaging and then you wonā't have to worry about reading the ingredients. If you want to use a bar of pure soap rather than liquid, just grate some and dissolve it in a little bit of hot water before adding it to the wash. Do you have the cheap bars of Velvet pure soap?
Also, adding a cup of plain white vinegar to the rinse water will help to remove any traces of the soap left in the blanket and wonāt harm it at all.
:lol:
:lol: ROFL!
