Bread and Butter GE Filter-Flo Set

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Ugh!

I have never been able to make my peace with GE's use of a toe kick on dryers when there is none on the washer. No matter how much the consoles look alike, that toe kick makes GE pairs look un-paired.

It doesn't even make any sense. It's the washer you stand very close to when unloading. You typically don't get all that close to a dryer when you're putting stuff in or taking it out.

Weird. Sorry, GE fans, but it is.
 
Earlier upper model washers had a kick/toe panel on the washers to match the dryers. I think it was the TOL and one or two below that, but they matched. I wonder why they could not make that recessed panel on the dryer the color of the cabinet or would the shadow make it look worse?

This pair sure makes the case for a way to close off the laundry area from public viewing. They were born ugly and only got worse.
 
Originally this space had a functional purpose - that's where the door opening pedal was located, and Tom's right, on the upper models GE used a black panel and chrome trim to mimic the dryer.  But when GE introduced the HUGE dryers, even the dryer lost the toe space.  That would have been a good time to delete the recess on all of their dryers, but they didn't.  Hotpoint took another approach to making the pair match, they placed an infill panel in the recess.  JCPenny's appliances had the same infill panel and I always thought that was a good "fix" to the situation.

 

lawrence
 
Even the 50's models had that recessed toe-kick, but that was functional. There was the toe-pedal door opener and also an adjustable air intake grill. Our later 1979-80 Hotpoint dryer had the recessed panel and you could still feel air being drawn in while it was running.

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Air sucked in at floor level!

Horrors. That's what Maytag sales literature talked about because Maytag dryers had the air intake in the upper rear panel and, at one time, I think I remember reading, there was a filter behind the louvers. It seems like it would be more efficient and keep the cabinet cooler to draw the air into the cabinet near the top and use the waste heat to start heating the incoming air instead of pulling it in at the bottom of the GEs and take heat out of the exhaust which can hasten moisture condensing in the vent and that's not good in a long duct.

And when GE introduced gas dryers the leveling feet were in extensions to bring them out in line with the front of the cabinet so the recess actually interfered with them, but at that time there was still a model or two with the pedal.
 
Check out the 1979 price on that Hotpoint washer.

$339 is equal to almost $1100 in our 2013 inflation ravaged dollars, the pair would be $1921. And they say Maytags were expensive.

Granted, one would get many of years of service out those machines to amortized the cost.
 
1979 JCP washer

My Grandma Janson had the HP rim-flo version of these in her senior Apt. building in the NW Suburbs of MPLS. Lot's of noisy splashy fun. The fast agitation stroke and spin drain was quite wild compared to Mom's 75 WP and Grandma Strand's 76 Lady Kenmore. Even though the WP rolled clothes faster with it's Surgilator and the LK could even handle horse blankets with it's 26 Gal tub and DAA.
WK78
 
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