Early Whirlpool Dryers

[ingliscanada]

My wife described the old Kenmore dryer her parents once owned. It was turquoise, and maybe from somewhere in the 50s. She said the lint screen was mounted right at the bottom of the machine - not on the top - and it was very large. I used to think that all Whirlpools had top-mounted lint screens. I'm familiar with 2 WP dryer layouts. The older style is the belt and pulley layout, with a belt-driven blower towards the top, directly under the lint screen,and with a 1-piece drum. I always thought that was the original design of WP dryers. Then there's the later style that's still currently in production. The drum has a fixed back, and is driven by one belt, and the blower is directly driven on the other end of the double-shaft motor. The blower is mounted on the bottom, and the top-mounted lint screen is super long.

I'm wondering if that old Kenmore was made by some other company, or did WP have an older design that predates the designs with the top-mounted lint screen. My wife said that she remembers the exhaust vent being loud, which describes the sound of the WP belt-driven blower. Is anybody familiar with the original design of the WP dryer, or any early model with a large, bottom-mounted lint screen?

 

[rickr]

wp/km dryer

here is a pixs of the rear of my 1956 Whirlpool dryer with the rear cover removed.

 

[rickr]

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second pixs, with the cabinet removed.

 

[rickr]

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3rd pixs, the lint filter ( on the right). Which is very short in comparison to the later WP built models.

I do not know of any other dryers with the lint filter on the bottom, except the 1950's GE that my parents had. It was like a large pull out drawer under the drum.

 

[ingliscanada]

Your dryer describes the earlier layout that I'm familiar with. I always thought that was the original WP dryer layout.

 

[norgeway]

Lint filter at bottom.

The only thing I know with a large filter at the bottom was a Norge, there is a door at floor level,the width of the machine,about 3 inches high, you pull this down and the filter slides out it is about 11/2 feet square.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I am in agreement with Norgeway

My mother had a Norge Gas dryer that had a door you dropped down under the drum and the lint filter was a big square like a commercial dryer.

She absolutely hated that dryer BTW. It was the first and last gas dryer she ever had.

 

[ingliscanada]

Bottom Filtered Dryers

I know of a few dryers that had a drawer-like lint filter mounted on or towards the bottom of the machine:
G.E. (early model), Frigidaire and Hamilton.
Did I miss any?

Also, I've seen Norge dryers with the lint filter inside the door opening - some even on the TOP of the opening. Evidendly Norge did some restyles with their dryers over the years.

My wife says she thought the old dryer was a Kenmore, but who knows for sure. She does remember that large lint screen on the bottom, which her mother even vaccuumed a few times! The door was a normal windowless side-swing door with a regular chrome handle on it. She remembers the exhaust vent being loud, which would rule out Norge (which has positive air flow resulting in a very quiet exhaust). Did any other company make machines for Kenmore in the early years, or was it always WP?

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Being that this was a Canadian model, there's no telling, but we didn't have any Kenmores in the U.S. that I'm aware of with a side swing door until the nineties or late eighties, and by then the chromed handles were long gone. I have seen pic-of-the-day ads of Canadian Kenmores with the side-swing door though.

Perhaps Simpson/Sears in Canada had a supply agreement with a maker other than Whirlpool at the time?

 

[ingliscanada]

KenmoreGuy64

Actually, my wife grew up in Phoenix AZ, so that machine was actually American.

 

[70series]

American Kenmores:

To my knowledge Whirlpool was the only manufacturer of American Kenmores, and all of them had the drop down door. Between the two brands, only Whirlpool branded dryers had side swing doors.

Have a good one,
James

 

[ingliscanada]

Evidentally, that old dryer my wife's family had was not a Kenmore, judging by the info I'm getting here. It might have been a Thor or something like that.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

My memory just flashed on ONE dryer model that in the late 60s/very early 70s was offered with Kenmore's sole large capacity washer of the time. We know the washer here as the 518 or Frankenmore. The dryer used a 29-inch control panel, but it was mated to a larger cabinet similar in size to the ginormous GE large drum dryers. The dryer was quoted as being nearly 8.0 cu ft. I believe. It had a side-swing big-a$$ door with the usual Kenmore chrome handle. I don't know where the lint was contained, but I had thought the design was an enlarged version of the standard dryer.

There was also some Kenmore dryers in the mid-60s, and some true BOL models into the mid 70s that had their lint filters in the bulkhead instead of being top-mounted.

Could one of these be the kicker?

Gordon

 

[mixfinder]

Hotpoint

My aunt had a 50's Hotpoint, so quiet you could barely hear it run. It had a lint screen the size of cookie sheet that pulled out from under the drum. We would warm our hands in the exhaust while we played outside.

 

[gansky1]

Here's the Kenmore big-boy, from John's collection in Maryland

 

[gansky1]

big-boy drum - you can see the blower in the back of the drum

(John is in the process of mating an electronic control system and different panel on this machine so this is all the pics I have.)

 

[whirlaway]

Old Style

T have a 56 frogeye Kenmore,last year I had to get a new belt.The long thin one,they are very hard to find.I finally procured one from an appliance store in Utah for 6 dollars.New old stock and it has worked perfect.I have been using it for an everyday dryer for 25 years paid 35 for it at a thrift shop. Bobby

 

[circlew]

Where is the lint filter in the "frogeyes"?

 

[mixfinder]

drdrdrdrdrdrdr

Our first dryer was used, a Whirlpool 1958 model with a square gold box that offer regular and wash and wear as well as 4 heats and air. It would rattle and bang like a jack hammer. When I pulled the back off you see the fan motor vibrating against the back of the fan housing. I have no idea if there was something as simple as a set screw or if a bushing was shot, but that day forward the back was off so I could leather bushings and they'd last 5 to 8 eight loads before the noise made you postal. Shortly after the wires in the heating element would break and it was reknitted so many times, I bought a length of wire to patch it. Mom was washing in a wringer so the clothes were sloppy wet and heavy. In 1968 a friend at work told me her mom had a bum set of Westinghouse and I could have them. They were middle of the road top loading with black agitator and black, gold and cream backsplash. Nothing was ever wrong with the washer and the fan motor in the dryer was split in two. Had it repaired and they performed flawlessly until I bought mom a matching Maytag 606 with suds saver in 1972. They ran until 1997 when mom got a close out Performa set when Earnst hardware went out of business. She paid $137.50 for each unit. The dryer is still in use and I replaced the washer this spring. It worked fine but went out of balance almost every load. Between 58 Whirlpool, 65 Westinghouse, 72 Maytag and 1997 Maytag the Westinghouse was the quietest and did a wonderful job with it's cross vane drying.