Avocado Tappan built-ins (including a dishwasher) at ReStore Oakland

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philr

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Jan 2, 2010
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There's even a Tappan vent hood. I really like the oven with the avocado inserts behind the glass!

 

$495

 

 



philr++12-6-2013-15-19-48.jpg
 
This Reminds Me....

....Of the days when Tappan appliances were a frequent prize on game shows. They were always made to seem very luxurious then.

Later, of course, they became the bargain-basement shopper's delight.
 
WOW!

I wish our Habitat got stuff so beautiful. Everything at ours has generally been ridden REAL hard and put away wet.

My brother in law works for Habitat in Denver and they get some beautiful things there as well.
 
Tappan Dishwasher

As Sandy indicated, these look like they are from the ERA when you'd see them on Let's Make A Deal. That dishwasher is most likely a Tappan Reverse-a-Jet dishwasher. Not the dual-drench from the early 1960s.
 
I think it's too new for that but I don't know much about these. Were the newer ones made by D&M?

Edit:
Bob, my reply was for Ken's comment. So this is still a Tappan product?

Were these decent performers?
 
Were the newer ones made by D&M?

Phil, the one above was the last of the true Tappan product. One of my best friends from high school dated a girl whose parents' house had these same appliances, in avocado, and the house was built in the very early 1970s. I remember they had a early 1960s SQ set that was beginning to make ominous noises while agitating that made me cringe a bit. First family I'd ever known who had a matching SQ set. It had a peachy type of color on one section of the dial if I remember correctly.
 
My parents moved into a house in 77 that had that DW. It was an extremely poor performer and mom couldn't get to the store fast enough when she came to that decision to get a replacement.
 
Interesting...that cooktop in coppertone was in the house my folks bought in 1978 (labeled Youngstown-Tappan)...that house was built in 1958 or so with Youngstown appliances and cabinets; when my parents bought it it had that cooktop (with 7 click heats); a newer Hotpoint self-cleaning wall oven, the original 30" dishwasher and the metal cabinets. The dishwasher didn't last a month after we moved in (it was truly pathetic, but the previous owner was a "wash before you wash" type). My mom replaced it with a KA coppertone Imperial (the generation with the short upper arm) and re-did the kitchen in about 1986-7.
 
I think that could be a reversa jet. By the late 70's the models we were putting in our new homes were mid level and sourced by WPool. By the end of the 70's Tappan was sourcing from DM and were not popular with folks paying what we were asking for a "custom home". I put together a strongly suggested upgrade thatincluded a GE Americana double range and pot scrubber. Both are still in use in the house I built for myself.
 
They might have replaced it because they were tired of avocado green. Different people see colors differently. Maybe something needed repair and that was the trigger to just get new stuff. Or maybe they had never liked the layout of the kitchen and remodeled or remodeled to make the house more attractive and up to date looking for selling it. Nothing dates a house like the kitchen and bathrooms. Maybe the original owners sold the place and the new owners redid the kitchen with "professional look" appliances that probably won't last as long as these and, if they went with gas cooking, will need more service for those fragile electric ignition systems.

Whatever the reason, they got many decades of use out of these and, with care, someone who likes or can stand avocado can get many more years of service out of at least the cooking appliances if they are working now.
 
I am pretty sure that is a reversa jet

My parents bought our house in Youngstown in 1969. It was new. The neighbors across the street were already there but only by a year or two so that would mean their house was built in 67 or 68. If memory serves me correctly this is the dishwasher they had and I thought it said Reversa Jet on the front somewhere.

It just seems to me their model had more chrome on it but as soon as I saw this photo it really took me back. Maybe it didn't have all the chrome I remembered.
 
The Reverse-a-Jet patent application appeared in 1963. The nice thing about aw.org is that features like this have been covered before. So, here's a former discussion with a really a great thread of photos of this dishwasher. I miss those old appliance ads almost as much as the appliance designs(minus the lemons and spotty other flaws).

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?32805
 
Bargain Basement

So true.

 

Our '77 Monkey Ward microwave turned out to be a Snappan.  Enough said.  To its credit, it was still working fine when sold at the estate sale in 2008, and it had an actual browning element, though that feature never saw any use.

 

I don't know what it is about that Oakland ReStore.  They get a lot of nice stuff coming through there.

 

I do know that if one of our members still lived in Oakland, that dishwasher would have likely been irresistible.
 
Tappan Appliances

Tappan continued to use the Revers a-Jet name on their later wash-arm DWs like this one. The lower wash arm had a spring in it and after so many turns in one direction a little part flipped that caused a set of propulsion jets on the ends of the arm to close and an opposite set opened and the arm went the other way for a while. I never saw one that worked, LOL. Tappan DWs were NEVER any good, the best thing they ever did was to source their last units from WP in the late 1970s.

If I had bought the house these appliances were in they would have out the door quickly and not because they were avocado, LOL. That cook-top is a ridiculous design with the controls in the rear and both big burners in the front, I use small burners far more often that big ones. And the wall oven [ probably the best of the three ] does not offer top heat for baking, If one wanted vintage appliances there are much better choices.
 
Sage and free advice - large burners up front? I didn't take notice, focusing on the dishwasher.

Combo52- John, if you never saw one of these dishwashers work, how in Tappan's world did they
sell them with this ill-fated(?) engineering design. After a year's run of failure, wouldn't the customer return them and the news would be out? I can't imagine they managed to sell anything..with a flawed design...but then there was always..

Lets Make a Deal and new mid-priced new homes were the channels of unloading?
 
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