Combo Thread!

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I estimate the Bendix . . .

. . . combo takes about an hour to an hour and a half to wash and dry a load. So many times I have put a load in, set the controls, and then forgot about it until hours later.

I can save time by skipping the soak cycle. And, like you have said several times earlier, in cold weather, the dryer does a faster job.

If I happen to be around when it finishes the wash cycle, I take out the clothes and put them through my SpinX. When I do this, it will dry the load in 30 minutes. Without the SpinX, it takes 45 to 50 minutes to dry.

I think this is a 1959 model and am amazed that it works at all. Of course, the diving bell sitting next to it was installed originally in 1944, and it still moves right along with no problem.

Combos are very interesting. Part of the problems that caused their demise was that housewives could not get away from doing a week's worth of laundry in one day -- Monday was wash day and Tuesday was ironing day -- and it would take a combo all day to do the family wash. Now that people do smaller loads more often, they probably would be much better accepted.

Thanks for your inquiry.

Jerry Gay
 
Jerry, Thank you for the information. When Consumer's Research tested this machine they said it took a very long time to dry and when I looked at the dry timer, I could see that it could not even be set for more than 80 or 90 minutes so I was very curious. Thanks again.
 
Gary, that's a great front-load center you have there

must be a lot of fun, and it's so cool that the "diving bell" is still diving just fine after all these years.

 

Wondering what the rinsing procedures are on those two gems.
 
Both have essentially the same Bendix rinse formula set up by the late 40s: After the wash drain there is a spray rinse followed by a spin. Then a deep rinse, drain & spin followed by a second deep rinse. The washer goes into the final spin, but the Duomatic does a pre-spin then stops so that the load falls away from the drum, then restarts tumbling and goes into spin. The pre-spin (mostly) keeps the load from sticking to the drum after the spin so that everything gets fluffy dry.
 
HI TOM

The Westy coin-ops at Chrystal Beach, Ontario did a flush rinse after the tumble drain when, as a boy, I was privileged to take the laundry there when we rented a cottage every summer for a few weeks. It was bliss watching them work. It seems as though the Norge has an extra trick up her sleeve with the spray rinse during the spin, agile little girl that she promises to be. Other tricks too, perhaps, unless some of it is ad hype. I think I read about 5 rinse maneuvers.

 

 

OOPS: edit error, thought I was in Marty's thread.

[this post was last edited: 12/2/2011-13:00]
 
HELP!!!!!

On the same day that I posted pictures of my Philco/Bendix Duomatic, I did a load in it and discovered a leak -- horrors.

It appears that whenever water is entering the tub, there is a drip. This makes me think that the hose going to the water entrance at the 2:00 position just inside the door is either cracked or is coming loose.

Does anybody know how to get the top off so I can check out the connection? Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Jerry Gay
 
How to get topless

Hi jerry gay

On mine a uk model you use a slim metal blade ie metal ruler or fish slice and push it in the gap between the front and the top panel not to prise it up but to release a metal clip don't use a screw driver or any thing thick it will crack and chip the enamel , there may be screws at the back of yours but mine is a tuck under the control panel type.
Lift off and you squeeze the soap Shute out off it's connection to the drum. When re fixing you may have to remove a soap guard to fix it back in to the drum
If you watch my video clip at about 18 seconds the camera pulls back to show the full machine with top removed you can just see a small black metal clip on the front edge this is what your pushing back

This is only a guess yours may be different so please check the gap with a flashlight and don't force anything good luck and please post some topless pics !!

Richard

 
If you start trying to remove the top, remember that you have to release the bellows in the detergent chute between the top and the outer tub. I would look at the back of the machine first. In the older combos, you had to remove screws in the back in order to slide the top forward to release it. Yours is the first of the 27" models so I am not sure how they constructed it.
 
Thanks for these pics & this thread! And also worthy of ment

Looks like the woodgrain front/coppertone body is a take on Whirlpool doing that w/ their washers & dryers (available in coppertone & avocado) that year, too!

Great pics & if I may, quote Charles Klamkin in saying that "the concept of washing & drying in the same machine is a sad history, as there had been many class-action suits & customer's complaints & manufacturers' inabilities to compound service problems had led to the demise of an otherwise worthwhile appliance", or something to that effect, as in his 1973 book, Klamkin lightly goes over "Combination washers & dryers", of which at the time only GE & Kenmore had been making them, but cites how their reliability is questionable, in addition to them being "expensive to buy & costly to maintain", while mentioning Philco/Bendix had built a sound machine before abandoning the laundry business altogether... His other book from 1970, IF IT DOESN'T WORK, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS goes over them in the same fashion, and I agree, that this design really needs to be more universally tried today...

-- Dave
 
COMBINATION WASHER-DRYER PROBLEMS

Charles Klamkin [ who ever the hell he is ] doesn't sound like he had much of a handle on combos at the end of thier run. No US combos were still in production in 1973 and we had many customers that often got 10 years at a time out of thier GEs and KMs with almost no service issues. I also never heard of any class action suits about these machines, there weren't even enough of any given brand to get much of a suit going, LOL.
 
Jon, This Klampkin information has been half-assed more than half of the time at best on every subject. I would want to see his research and information-gathering methods as a basis for even picking up his book from the shelf, much less giving it any credence. How typical of a hack writer to run off lines about a product's service history as a cause for its demise.

It is true that a lot of combos were returned by dissatisfied customers. A former Sears service tech told me about them hauling the old 33" combos to the dump and pounding ice picks into the sump areas of the tank so that they would never be used again. He told me that when he saw how I sealed rust holes in my WP 33" machine with small pieces of glass epoxied over the holes below the bleach hose. WP should have said to follow the bleach with a cup or two of water as a chaser.

A friend's mom briefly had an Easy combo, but was not happy with it and returned it for just a washer and had an old Bendix dryer that looked like the first Duomatic on the carport (no basement). I did not get any of the story from her; wish I had.

As John said, many worked well for a long time. People were told that the machines were a compromise and they knew it. When you only had space for a washer, having the benefits of both machines in that space was something many people chose. The Westinghouse SpaceMates were a compromise also with reduced capacity and a not so stellar service record of their own plus the dryer had to be vented and a stacked installation required height which some spaces did not have. I knew someone with a pair of them and she said that when they were new, she had nothing but trouble. She finally forced the Georgia Power Company to come out and completely overhaul (her words) the machines and they worked well for many years after that, but she said she would never buy another Westinghoue appliance because of them.
 
I wonder how many former non-combo people like me

have now become converts. The WP, The Easy, The KM, GE, MT, And BX, and now the never seen HP. What's next?

 

Wishing I could convert the non-wringer people, then we'd have a group who liked all washers. Or maybe I'm just too easy.
smiley-laughing.gif


 

Hope everyone has a good day. The sunshine here is brilliant, but our first big snow is expected tonight.
 
HOW TO BUY MAJOR APPLIANCES:

The commentary on Combo's is a bit of "padding" in the "How to buy a dryer" section... Though it details the then-current introduction of Westinghouse Stacking models & Frigidaire's "Dual" deal...

OK, so no mention of Class Action Lawsuits on W/D combo's... I must'a read something like that somewhere else & not in this book, then: (Sorry!)

-- Dave

daveamkrayoguy++12-8-2011-20-12-34.jpg
 
Two of Johns machines,a Duomatic and the Speed Queen,I found by accident. The Speed Queen was on Blair Rd. not far from his house. I'd see it on the way to his house but was on a train and couldn't stop so,I called and told him where it was. The Duomatic,if I.remember correctly,was in old Dundalk and was a bitch to move. I'm so glad Jon had the ability to get them.
 

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