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sudsmaster

sudsmaster

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Recently I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the floating naval museum, the USS Hornet, the WWII era aircraft carrier anchored off Alameda in San Francisco Bay.

While touring the second deck, I came across a small auxiliary laundry room, which apparently served the officer's quarters. There I found a big horizontal tumble washer, a vertical high speed extractor, a huge mangle, and a 20 lb HOYT rigid mount automatic front loader. The Hoyt looks like it's still being used today, perhaps by the museum staff, and I spotted a giant box of Persil in a nearby kitchen area.

Oh, yeah, there's also an 80's era GE Filter-Flo next to the Hoyt, but its hoses are curled up inside the tub so I doubt it's being used much these days. The extractor is mostly hidden behind the big horizontal washer, to the left of the GE, and the big green steam-heated dryers are to the right of the Hoyt.

Now, in full complement this ship had over 1,000 sailors on board, so I'm sure a much larger laundry room lurks on another deck below this one. But I think someone had fun with this "little" laundry area.
 
Love the Mangle. My job on Altar Guild at my parish (Episcopal) is washing and ironing Communion Linens and vestments. But another job is washing and ironing large linens that line the altars....long and wide....job would go much faster with a mangle like this one.
 
Ironers (aka

Like the one shown are common in commercial laundries,hotels, and other large laundries that process large amounts of bed and table linens. Because of their large with sheets and large table cloths do not require folding before being ironed, a plus for those whom do not like creases of any sort in their linens.

While many units do heat via steam (practical as many commerical/large laundries already have boiler(s) to produce heat for everything from heating the water in washing machines to providing steam/heat for the irons/presses; large ironers can also run on natural gas, propane, and of course electric.

Ages ago large ironers like these were sold for home use by such companies as Simplex. Heated by natural gas,like their cousins they were designed for homes that produced lots of flat work on laundry day. On two occasions these behemoths popped up on Ebay, but obviously shipping was not an option. Of course one would also have to figure out how to take apart,move and put the darn thing together again. Like to think they were sold locally or went to a museum instead of being sent to the krusher.

Hoyt Washers:

Have never seen those before, what is the history beind the brand?

Launderess
 
That GE is the one my mom got in late 1978 or early 1979 after I'd goten my pair. It's the model below what mine was. This one had just two speed combos.
 
I though that Hoyt washer looked interesting as well. With Google's help, I found this website, connected to the Navy. Once there, scroll down the page and you can click on the link for the Hoyt washer. Be warned, it's a HUGE PDF (47 MEG) file to download, but it's the whole 72 page installation/instruction/service manual for the machine.

Additionally they have some other neat files, job descriptions and such for laundry and other machines.

 
DL,

Yep, there's lots of old genuine linoleum tile on that ship.

The USS Hornet is berthed at Alameda Point, which was once part of the old Alameda Naval Air station, which is now closed and slowly being turned over to civilian usage.

Alameda is just about due east of southern San Francisco, across the Bay.

I also spotted an old original Amana Radar Range in one of the pantries - the model with the fold down door and big chrome handle. It looked like it was still operational, although I didn't dare try it. There are also interesting institutional size steam heated soup/stew pots (probably hold about 50 gallons each) as well as belt-driven bench-top mixing machines (looking like they hold at least 10 quarts).

Just about everything on this ship that needs to get heated is via steam or electricity. I don't think they had any natural gas or propane for heating or cooking. Which makes sense, who needs a gas leak on a warship with explosives on board? The ironer is steam heated, as well as the clothes dryers. I'm assuming the cooktops were steam heated for boiling things, and maybe electric for frying, baking, or broiling. But the next time I'm on board I'll take a closer look at the cooking areas to confirm if there is any flammable gas service.
 
Here in Texas, we have the battleship "Texas" anchored outside
of Houston. When I toured the ship a couple of years ago, the laundry area looks similar to what you photographed. The washer was a huge horizontal machine, largest I ever saw.
The laundry area was located on the main deck where the sailors
slept, I thought it was a large area for the size of the ship.
 
I've always found the resourcefulness of ships to be very fascinating....nothing goes to waste, even energy! The steam that is used for heating water, clothes dryers and ironers and such is "waste" steam from the engines that still has heat, but doesn't have much pressure. That steam is also used for climate control purposes too, and for the distillation of sea water for drinking purposes.

My other favorite technology along the same lines are the fuel cells that are used in NASA spacecraft. EVERYTHING those produce is useful to the mission. They consume hydrogen and oxygen, which is combined into water for the astronauts to live off of. The combining of these two elements creates electricity and heat. The heat keeps the interior cabin at a liveable temperature, and of course, the electricity powers all the electronics, lighting, etc.
 
Basically, the process occuring in the fuel cell can be reversed! By passing DC electricity through water, the elements of hydrogen and oxygen will separate. Hydrogen will bubble up from the positive plate, and oxygen on the negative plate.

Of course, the whole issue with hydrogen powered automobiles develops from the fact that it's not 100 % efficient. A hydrogen powered car may be a bout 80% efficient, which is great considering a gasoline powered car is only 25% efficient at converting the fuel burned into motion (most of the energy in the gasoline is wasted as heat) ...or is it really that good? Not exactly, because electrical generating plants are about 50-60% efficient, then you have transmission line losses, and there's losses in the creation of hydrogen. Once everything's all said and done, the hydrogen powered car consumes the same amount of natural resources as the gasoline powered vehicle!!!

Still, the process is not doomed to the scrap heap of technology. UPS (uninterruptable power supplies) for computers and even whole-building backup systems are being developed that use hydrogen. They should be hitting the stores within a couple of years. It's not vaporware, like hydrogen cars are. During normal grid operation, water is electrosylized into hydrogen and oxygen, which is then compressed and stored in tanks. When the power fails, the hydrogen is "burned" in a fuel cell, and your computer, or whatever is powered. The advantage is that a fuel-cell backup system makes no noise or pollution and will run for several times longer than a battery backup system ever would.

Electrolysis is also the same reason why car batteries always mention to "charge in a well ventilated plac". Hydrogen will be electrolicyzed out of the water within the battery. Enough builds up, and a spark could ignite it just like a natural gas explosion!
 
Cybr,

Not quite yet. The Airgen products require an added cylinder of consumable hyrdrogen to generate electric power.

What you described previously went one set further - during normal grid operation, the line power would electrolyze water and send the hydogen to a compressor and thense to a storage cyclinder for use in the even of a power outtage. The advantage of this would be no need to replace the cylinders after an outtage. Also, as described, the amount of energy that could be stored in a small cylinder would be greater than that capable by a best chemical battery of the same size.

What I'd like to see would be natural-gas fired home fuel cells, to generate electricity on-site from NG. Becuase fuel cells are so efficient, this could be competitive with established electricity rates, and would have the advantage of not losing energy to long transmission lines (it takes relatively very little energy to send natural gas through pipes to homes).
 

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