Best washer for towels/cleaning cloths

[panthera]

dryer

As our forum's official nervous nelly, I would not be drying fabric exposed to too much oil or solvents in a clothes dryer.

 

[volvoguy87]

Old Maytag!

An old Maytag would be the best bet. They seem to run forever, and their swirl-away drain moves the floating crud away from the clothes unlike a neutral-drain WP/KM, but it's not a high-speed spin-drain. With a MAytag swirl-away rinse, you get the best of both worlds. Also, I finally was able to test my Maytag A208 today. It is my first vintage washer, and I am very impressed! It works perfectly, quietly, and turns the load over about 3 times per minute. It washes rings around the stupid Norgetag supplied by my landlord!

Pictures to come soon in a new thread,
Dave

 

[danemodsandy]

Dave:

Spoken like a true Volvo fan! Simplicity and strength, right?

P.S.- I have an '88 245 wagon, navy outside/blue vinyl inside.

 

[volvoguy87]

Strong, simple, perfection.

1987 240 GL sedan. Dark green, almost blue, exterior, tan leather interior. It runs like my A208, like a fine Swiss watch. Companies like Volvo and Maytag should stop what they are doing, think for awhile, and realize that they had it rigt the first time!

If they still made 'em, I would buy a new one, but that just isn't an option, now is it?

Dave

 

[sudzreturn]

Towels and Detergent

Personally, as a twin tub owner, i start from a hot (60c) to very hot (95c or 85c on Hoovermatic twin tubs)and work my way down through to light coloureds as the water cools and use a high sudsing detergent. Ive used all the major UK brands, and the best i would say is Ariel, auto or twin tub, but its not for those with sensetive skin, its biological. For those with sensetive skin type, the best for stains would be Fairy Non Bio (which is an auto low sudsing detergent)or Fairy Snow (high sudsing). But to be honest, i dont know why people rave about Persil, its crap, water goes grey with the automatic version powder, and the twin tub Persil.... oy vey, talk about soap cake! When it comes to wash time, in a normal agitator twin tub, wash time is usually about 12 mins, with PLENTY of water for them to move around, but it only takes 4 mins in a Hoovermatic, well they are quite vigorous. Hard stain wise, like oil and the like, i soak in cold water with your bog standard vinegar, works a treat then wash as normal! Oh, anyone got a spare Hoovermatic??? I still got that horrid Thomson thing, i want wanna of `my babies' back!! Ty

 

[pturo]

Vintage Center Dial Maytags Fabricmatics have a Permanent Press Cycle that gives I believe 3 or 4 rinses. Fill, agitate, slow partial drain, fill, agitate, slow partial drain,fill, agitate, spin, spray rinse, fill, agitate, spin. I think that is three rinses plus a spray rinse. Would be excellent cycle for getting extra residue off clothes. In permanent press, the draining of the tub acts more like a neutral drain(very short slow spin) for two of the 4 rinses.(Cool down) Uses more water than regularfill, spin,fill, spin, spray) but if you want clean clothes or cloths.... Phil

 

[sudsmaster]

Minority Opinion

I wash all manner of shop towels and shop coast and shot work clothes in my Neptune 7500, and they come out great.

For the real dirty stuff, I do a warm rinse/spin with 2 oz of STPP. This gets rid of surface dirt, and also foam suppressants that are loaded up in machine coolant. Then I do a regular 34 minute boosted hot wash with stain cycle. Currently I'm using about 2 oz of STPP with about 1 oz. of grated soap. If you can't find STPP, then a good HE detergent works well also, and STPP helps with just about any detergent, especially for really grimy stuff.

An old Maytag top loader is great, but it won't rinse as well as the Neptune.

One the shop rags are laundered they should pose no fire threat in a dryer.

 

[panthera]

gosh,

The Neptune solution sounds ideal for the problem. My concern is more with the Amannananatags and the Norgetags and the Shredmores (especially with their dirt-redeposition neutral drain design) which do not remove the flammables well enough.
Too many dryer fires in the last years to be just co-incidence.
I take grief for it without end over here, but I just use lots of disposable, recycled paper towels for really dirty work. Sure, they get tossed. But what about the determents, hot water, etc. needed to really wash that stuff out?
Bet the environmental impact comes out to be about the same, if not better - we have a heat generating plant in Munich which burns our rubbish cleanly.

 

[sudsmaster]

Keven,

There may be an issue with laundering shop rags. If done in a business, there might be environmental regulations that affect the discharge of the dirty wash water into the sewage system, because it might contain greases/metals/etc. Or so a former employer told me, when I suggested we move from dispo paper towels to washable shop rags and get a little front loader (like the Danby) to handle them. My suggestion fell flat.

Another option is a used Frigmore front loader. These can often be had for less than $200. While they don't have internal heaters, they are relatively robust and could certainly handle shop rags/etc, especially if they have a good supply of hot water.

 

[panthera]

Rich,

You got that right - my dad wrote me not to long ago that folks in Larimer County, Colorado had all stopped developing film at home because the county was charging penalties of 10,000$ if any silver was found in the sewage.
Since Colorado water has always had high levels of silver, I find this kinda stupid, but then...well, I am a strong proponent of protecting the environment, just think the old "you get more flys with honey than vinegar" mentality applies here.
I save my paper towels, by the way, in a fire-proof container and take them to the "alt-Öl" collection center around the corner.There they take shop towels and contaminated paper, it is burned in the city's power plant.
Those old Frigemore FLs are very robust and truly good machines, especially compared to the FL sh** produced in the US nowadays.

 

[sillysuds]

I agree with spinout, get a GE filter flo or Kenmore or Whirlpool.

 

[panthera]

I am curious,

but what advantage would accrue from using either a GE filter-flo or a Kenmore or a Whirlpool as opposed to, say, a Maytag or a real Frigidaire or any twin tub or FL?

The GE-Filter-Flo (which should NEVER have been dropped) would do a much better job of, well, filtering, the just about any other machine.

Kenmore and Whirlpool TLs use neutral drains; this means the whole gunk gets dumped back on the clothes after the wash cycle. I should think they were the last good machine I would take for this task (I assume we are talking vintage here).
Their spin speeds are inadequate to the task of removing soil by extraction.
I think a unimatic through a WI-18 would do a far better job of actually cleaning, at least a unimatic would also be able to extract soil well.

 

[sillysuds]

With a kenmore or whirlpool(Belt Drive) you could see the lint being picked up off the clothes.direct drives you can not.

 

[rickr]

Spin drain v/s neutral drain

Unless a machine has a solid tub, there is no advantage between a neutral drain and a spin drain. In fact, the spin drain may deposit more gunk on the clothes,as it mixes the dirt and oil through the clothes as the machine does the spin drain. With the neutral drain the clothes are floating on the top, and the dirt has settled to the bottom, or into the outer tub.

The old "draining the dirt through the clothes" statement that we here over and over around this site is from the old days, when most machines had a solid tub, and the water was spun over the top of the tub. With a solid tub, that "draining through the clothes" statement made some sense. It makes no sense to use that statement today, when all brands are using a perforated wash tub.

 

[panthera]

valid point

There is some truth to that, I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks, Rick.

 

[rickr]

No prob Keven.
A spin drain does not really "spin the water out" unless it is a solid tub machine.

A spin drain with a perforated basket may be more fun to watch, but other than drama, there is no advantage.

 

[panthera]

I guess I am too conditioned by thinking

on the H-Axis. In FLs, the perforations do play a role - the opening around the drum at the front is quite narrow, the rear is, for obvious reasons, solid.
I had the opportunity over the last two years to do a lot of washing at my folks house.
Pretty icky clothes, including lots of grease and other nasties.
Seems the "Frigidaire" (White crap) was good at distributing the grease throughout the fabrics whereas the Frigimore actually removed most of it.
I wonder how much mechanical action can actually accomplish compared to chemical action and time - this electrolux series washes a good 17 minutes and the TL ground and shuddered its way through 12.
Sorta.
Spin on the FL: 1200. Spin on the TL: Supposedly 400, but I think that was more optimism than reality.

 

[danemodsandy]

Volvoguy87:

:1987 240 GL sedan. Dark green, almost blue, exterior, tan leather interior. It runs like my A208, like a fine Swiss watch. Companies like Volvo and Maytag should stop what they are doing, think for awhile, and realize that they had it right the first time!"

Y'know, I can't figure out if vintage Maytags are the Volvo of washing machines, or if vintage Volvos are the Maytag of cars! ;-)

And you're right- both companies would do well to take a look back at their older products and work hard at replicating their virtues on their new models.

 

[DADoES]

I ran a cycle on my DD KA toploader a few days ago, to rinse out any dust/debris that may be in the basket left from the machine sitting unused in my garage for a couple months, and from my repair on the agitator dogs recently. Interesting, I watched the neutral drain, and saw a particular bit of flotsam dance around for a few moments and then get "sucked out" through a perf. It did not remain in the basket and settle to the bottom. Of course there were no clothes involved so it's reasonable to assume that some bits of detrius may be left on the clothes as the water receeds, but I doubt it's as serious as all that for the normal household laundry situation.

 

[sudsmaster]

I ran my '78 GE Filter-Flo for about four years before I replaced it with the Neptune. While the filter tray did snag a fair amount of lint/cat hair, a lot would come out in the dryer as well.

My '83 Whirlpool had a cascading waterfall lint filter - the pullout type with a sawtooth comb type of lint snagger. I found it was a real pain. When it caught a certain amount of lint, it would start spewing water in various directions instead of a steady stream. And cleaning the sawteeth of dried lint was a tedious and imperfect process. I think the hidden lint filters are an improvement over that.

Nowadays I just vacuum things like comforters and blankets that might have collected cat hair before laundering. And the dryer collects most of the lint/hair.