2 Types of machines I've never really been interested in wringers and twin tub educate me.

[mattl]

Title says it all.  I've never really been interested in these types of machines, really know little about each.

 

With a wringer I'd guess you wash the clothes, wring them out, drain the tub and fill to rinse and wring again?  did people pile up the washed clothes after washing then rinse them all?  Reuse the wash water? I can see the attraction prior to automatics but I know they were produced well after the majority of machines were automatic.

 

Twin tubs I have no clue as to their use.  Are they basically a step up from a wringer?  Wash in one tub, spin in the other?

 

Just looking for some basic info.  I see many here are into various versions of each.

 

[rp2813]

I feel the same about wringers.  Too much work, and lousy extraction compared to centrifugal force.

 

I'm more intrigued by something like an Easy Spindrier for its rinsing capabilites, and would be interested in using one for bed linens during the line drying months.

 

The little rectangular twin tub machines don't appeal to me, either with their looks or what strikes me as inferior cleaning capability due to lack of a real agitator.

 

[washdaddy]

with a wringer what I've seen is people use the machine for the "washing" of the load... the agitation is stopped to remove the load from the washer...passed thru the wringer into another tub/sink of water to rinse out the garment by hand....than passed back thru the wringer to finalize the process...and put into a laundry basket to than either hang up or place the load into a dryer.

Yes the wash water is used for multiple loads depending on how dirty the laundry is. You started out with the hottest wash and worked your way down to the coolest. Once you wrung out the first wash load into the rinse tub/sink...you let them soak in the rinse for a moment while you reloaded the washer with the next load...you'd restart the washer for the second load put the lid on the machine...and attend to rinsing out the first load by hand and wringing it back out thru the wringer and placing it in a waiting basket.

You'd keep going back and forth between the "wash load" and the "rinse load" until you were finished. You either had lines to hang up your laundry...or you had a waiting line for the dryer.

You'd be able to get a weeks worth of laundry washed & rinsed in no time.

 

[launderess]

Conventional/Wringer Washing Machines

Were nothing more than an upgrade from wash tubs and mangles (by hand) thanks to electric power. Commercial laundries by the late 1800's took advantage of steam power (either to generate electricity or operate machinery via systems of belts), thus could get by without motors; Madame at home had to wait until electricity came to her area, and the invention of motors small enough to operate the various mechanisms.

Commercial laundries of the period did not reuse wash water. Though perhaps some rinse waters could be kept for a subsequent wash or soak cycle.

Household laundry was then an orgy of backbreaking work; beating, scrubbing, boiling, wringing that took two to three days to complete.

Semi-automatic washers both wringer and spin drier versions merely replaced some of the back breaking work to machines.

Instead of scrubbing with a wash board and brushes a central beater, tumbler, suction cups, and any of the other countless variations back then either moved wash through water, or water through wash. When things were clean you were still faced with extracting water from the wash and subsequent rinses. Wringers/mangles were familiar to housewives but soon as small and powerful enough motors could be fitted onto machines, you got spin driers.

There are basically two ways of doing laundry; you can shift the water, or shift the laundry. Fully automatic washing machines do the former, whilst semi-automatics the latter.

The benefit of semi-automatic washing machines (if you want to look at things that way) is reuse of water (both wash and rinses), and since the functions are independent you can get on with say rinsing one load whilst the other is washing. Because of this it is easier to get through several loads of wash faster than waiting for a fully automatic washer to complete each cycle.

Here is a link to a film covered previously here in the group. It is a post-war British housewife coping with doing laundry manually. She then is schooled on the "new" modern way of using time saving appliances; a wringer washer and flatwork ironer.



For various reasons British housewives were lumbered down with either hand washing or using semi-automatics after WWII longer than her sisters in the USA. In the same period American housewives were ditching wringer washers for fully automatics.

My two automatic washers (Miele and AEG) take an hour to an hour and one half per "short" normal cycle. If one has several loads of wash to get though it could easily take all day, however one simply loads the machine with washing, detergent, and whatever else then returns when things are done.

With the Hoover TT and now the Maytag wringer can get though two or three loads of washing in that same one hour. However am stuck standing there for the duration and am heavily involved in the process.
[this post was last edited: 10/5/2016-05:52]

 

[launderess]

"I'm more intrigued by something like an Easy Spindrier for its rinsing capabilites, and would be interested in using one for bed linens during the line drying months.


The little rectangular twin tub machines don't appeal to me, either with their looks or what strikes me as inferior cleaning capability due to lack of a real agitator."

Unimac pretty much copied their UM101 and UM202 washers from the Easy Spindrier. http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?57725

 

Learning from what Hotpoint made clear decades before; impeller washing isn't very good. But a central beater properly designed will give excellent results.

 

Because you are shifting laundry from wash to extractor/rinse tub those Unimacs are meant for places that want to process large amounts of linen quickly. Car washes are  one, but also hotels, restaurants and other places use those UM twin tubs for say processing loads made up of small items (towels, napkins, small tablecloths, shirts, etc..).

 

 

 

[abcomatic]

Easy spindrier and rinsing.

I have both wringer machines and an Easy spindrier with the rinse cone in the spin basket. I am not convinced that they rinse all that well? Any of you have a thought on that?

The wringer machines are what I like. Yes, you have to be there to do the wash, but you can do 4 loads in an hour. Wash, 2 rinses and on the line. That takes about 15 min. when you do that, so while one load is washing you are rinsing and hanging up the wash. Come back and do the same thing over and before you know, you are done. If the wash water is too dirty, empty and fill with fresh water and detergent. I have 2 rinse tubs so when the water gets too soapy, I just pull the stopper, drain and add new water. Happy washing no matter what sort of machine you like. Gary

 

[akronman]

Easy Spindrier

Wonderful machine! If you have the cone rinse spinner and do each rinse load twice by pulling the clothes out and re-arranging for a second rinse, then you get excellent results. You don't have to use any more water or time than they suggest, just do a re-arrange half way through.

 

[abcomatic]

HI Mark, Thanks for the tip on rinsing in my Easy. I love the spiralator action.
I'll try the rinse, redistribute the clothes and rinse again. Gary

 

[jeb]

wringer / spinners

as an addition to Launderess's post, You did not have to wait for electricity. Most major manufactures introduced washers with gasoline engines by the 1920's. These were advertised as "farm Washers" because a lot of farms still did not have electricity yet. The ads stated that "farm wife's" could have every convenience her big city sister had. You could also switch to an electric motor when you got your "current" installed at the farm. jeb

 

[yogitunes]

still using manual wringer/twintub machines well after automatics were introduced might occur to ask why?

a number of reasons could pop up......

some people you could not change their ways, or convince them the automatics were better....some people are tried and true

there is the hard labor of monitoring and becoming more involved.....but for some, there is for example, heating water, in a wringer you could get several uses....yet you miss the chore of an automatic filling and disposing of the wash water by itself....some looked at it as the cost of heating that water, for one time 10 minute use, and then throw it away....that thought occurs to a lot of people today as well.....

the suds saver machines helped many change over to automatics, yet was able to reuse the wash water.....

it would be one thing to have hot water from your tap to fill a machine, but if you had to heat water on the stove, and fill the machine by the bucket, you wouldn't be so quick to toss that away so quickly.....

many don't have the septic/sewer to accommodate an automatic machine.....thus adding expense to septic problems, pump outs....

a lot of people still use these machines.....as it fits their needs and are more practical for them.......

as Launderess stated, you would be surprised how fast you could go through several loads of laundry quickly.....

 

[mattl]

Interesting insights, thanks...

 

[launderess]

For the record

Easy wasn't the only twin tub in town.

General Electric, ABC/Altorfer Bros, Universal Electric and perhaps a few others all made washer/spinner combination units. They were not it seems huge success as only Easy seems to have stuck with it.

You can see one such machine here:

 

[launderess]

What Yougitunes said!

Consumer Reports began covering automatic washers in the 1950's or maybe late 1940's IIRC. They advised those considering purchase as to the required (hot) water and drain requirements. Would also go on to advise about power requirements, out of balance controls (or lack thereof) and host of other issues that affected new fangled fully automatic washing machines, but didn't befront wringers.

Anyone who has seen enough old movies and or lived through the period knows even during the 1950's you had plenty of homes/apartments that hadn't changed much from when they went up fifty or more years ago. No indoor plumbing, or cold water only. Main source of water might be a tub or sink in kitchen or elsewhere.

Unlike wringer washers and or tubs with a mangle fully automatic washing machines usually were stationary affairs. That is you needed a place to put the things that was close to the source of hot and cold running water, and drains.

In many homes automatic washers went next to those huge cast iron, soapstone or concrete laundry/utility sinks. These often were previously (and perhaps still) used when washing was done by hand and or for rinsing when using a wringer washer.

CR at the time didn't think much of suds saving washing machines. They noted that water cooled and other issues that made the things more bother than they were worth. But as Yogitunes mentioned those machines were a good way to get housewives to ease into fully automatic washing machines.

 

[launderess]

Idea behind twin tubs was simple

They preserved the water/soap/detergent savings of wringer washers but offered a safer means of extraction.

Quite honestly there was a hate brewing against mangles ever since the things arrived on scene; that chorus grew louder when electrically powered wringers came into existence. Simply put the things were dangerous, a necessity but never the less dangerous.

With a hand operated wringer at least one can stop turning quickly; OTOH many early powered wringers were simply not safe; they either had no easy way to stop and release the rollers and or the switches couldn't be easily reached before one was garroted, lost a limb or whatever.

Then there was the fact wringers aren't very good at extracting water. At best most compared to about 200rpm spin speed. Also because basically you are squeezing layers of fabric flat it causes all sorts of problems. Broken buttons, torn hems or other parts of textiles were common with both hand and electric powered mangles. Women would spend hours after laundry day mending tears and or replacing buttons damaged by wringing on laundry day. Some women/laundresses would remove all buttons from items before sending them to the wash, then sewed them back on afterwards.

Hard wringing also created deep creases that would have to be ironed out later.

Enter the spin drying tub! Just as with commercial laundries and their extractors it was now possible to remove water from laundry by centrifugal force. This resulted in less wear and virtually removed possibility of damaged buttons and other fastenings. Long as the thing was loaded properly.....

Maytag and others who stayed with wringer washers for decades kept at R&D to perfect the art. Balloon wringer rollers became standard. These were advertised as unable to break buttons/fastenings. Maytag went further by designing a mangle with one hard (black) roller and one softer. So instead of mashing laundry between two hard objects, the softer roller yielded. This supposedly removed risk of damage and all those hard creases.

Spin driers on twin tubs also allowed extraction of items that never would go through a wringer, or at least easily. Things like thick blankets, rugs, pillows, etc.... Instead of having to remove the feathers/down from a pillow (wringer washer), you could wash the thing in one side of twin tub, then extract in other all without removing anything.

http://www.atticpaper.com/proddetail.php?prod=1932-easy-washing-machine-ad

 

[ozzie908]

Here is a Hotpoint twin tub

I did a brief video so you can see a typical twin tub. These were the fastest spinning machines you could get 3100 rpm I believe.

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=St34yJ737FE

 

[warmsecondrinse]

I enjoyed the British house wife and Twin Tub vids. Thanks.

So this Hotpoint Twin Tub let you do a rinse&spin in the spinner while another load is being washed?

If so, cool.
------------

I actually ignored twin tubs until Yogitunes put one up on a 2 foot high pedestal so I could actually look at it without breaking my back. I can see the advantages if you have to do a lot of laundry quickly AND have the time to spend doing it.

Wringers are fun to play with, but I can't imagine one as a daily driver.

Jim

 

[panthera]

High extraction speed and spin rinse

Arguably mean that twin tubs can clean very well.

 

[anthony]

wringers

When you think of all that washing having to be done by hand a wringer washer must have been a godsend the housewife.My mum had one when i was born in 1957 it was a Parnall machine.it not only did it do our washing it also did my grand parents.On Mondays my grandma would turn up at our house with a pram full of dirty laundry both women would spend the morning washing. Around lunch time gran would trundle off back to her house [just round the corner]with a pram full of damp washing ready to hang out in her own garden.Around 1961/2 dad bought a spin dryer that was used with the parnall machine speeding up the whole process.

 

[launderess]

With both twin tubs and wringer washers it is best to think of the old ways.

You will not be able to get through many loads quickly having to wash things for longer then say ten minutes a go. This means most often the sort of pre-soaking and or pre-treating of old.

Also by pre-soaking loads (especially whites and colourfast) removing much of the muck before the main wash keeps the water cleaner, thus better able to get more washes out of a single tub.

Enzymes? Forget it. There is a reason why the first such products for laundry days at home were pre-soaks. You need a good twenty or so minutes of contact time for enzymes to truly work, though modern "fast wash" products may have shortened that requirement.

Again it helps if you think of twin tubs/wringer washing more along the lines of old school than modern, and things will go better. That is you need to have things laid out and an organized plan; once that is done you can whizz though plenty of washing quickly.