GE combo

[countryford]

This GE combo was listed on Craigslist a little over a year ago. It was located in Albuquerque. I contacted a friend of mine who lives in Albuquerque. He went and picked it up and stored it for me. I finally got it to my house, just last week I. I believe it to be from about 1972. It was originally white, but someone painted it. The drain hose appears to have a leak in it. I haven’t hooked up water to it yet.

 

[pulltostart]

Wow!

That's just beautiful.  Congratulations on getting it home.

 

lawrence

 

[qsd-dan]

Insanley clean

No picture of the box it came out of?

 

[combo52]

Last GE Combo

We worked on a few hundred of these machines back in the late 70s through the 80s, I still have lots of parts for them and saw first hand about anything that can go wrong with one, that said these GE Combs were probably the most reliable of all the Combos ever built, many ran for a decade or more without needing any service.

 

Cool that it is painted turquoise, however this model only came in White, Harvest Gold, Avocado and Copper-tone, GE stopped production of Combos in the spring of 1973, GE was the last company to stop building Combos in the US.

 

John L.

 

[circlew]

My neighbor Jane had (may still have) a GE combo in Harvest. She moved into the house in '73, and I think it was built in '70. The unit was included in the sale. She used this machine up until about 4 years ago, when it malfunctioned. She has been going to the washateria since. Her laundry area only has space for one machine, so she would have to buy a stacked set. To date, she has not done so. I'll have to remember to ask her if she still has it.

 

[jons1077]

Beautiful machine!

Needless to say, I would be dumbfounded to come across one of these! Congrats!

 

[frigilux]

Stunning! Congratulations on this rare find and may you wash many trouble-free loads in it. Can’t get over what great shape it’s in. Even the repaint job appears to have been done with care.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Congratulations & Thanks for Saving & Sharing!

As long as you had something to spin the load in before drying, these were not horrible machines. I would guess where you are that you would save the warm condensing water from drying to either reuse for washing another load or put on plants after it has cooled. BTW, they are not kidding about that button for Delicates and Perma Press. That lower heat is necessary to prevent fabric damage.

 

[washmeup]

Wow, Beautiful machine! Congratulations

 

[turquoisedude]

Congratulations on the combo!!  I have a lot of service literature on these later models if you ever need it.

 

[gyrafoam]

Great find. Looks to be in good condition.
The new HE detergents with low sudz would transform the rinsing. With the old detergents they were easy to over sudz, even with All or Dash.
The spin was pretty lame, so the Dry cycle overcompensated by baking the clothes. I remember seeing that coil glowing red and thinking the machines looked like a tumbling oven.
You had to use the Regular heat on towels or jeans or risk it taking hours to dry on Delicate.

They were very well built. GE put a gazillion of them in condo's of the late sixties and early seventies.
I've used plenty of them and never knew of one to need service. A relative of mine bought a new condo with one in it about 1970 and it was still in operation in the mid nineties.

 

[swestoyz]

Nice save, Justin! Hopefully you're able to get it going without too much effort.

Ben

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Very nice! Yes, please keep us posted.

 

[tomturbomatic]

It looks like you got one of the models with the clear window,  which is better for clear reception on the laundry channel than the pebbly glass. I do not know why they switched from the clear glass, but I did not like the change. 

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Here's what I find neat-o:

Wow, a 'Wash Only' cycle!

Is that so you can line dry?

-- Dave

 

[tomturbomatic]

Well, yes for items that cannot be dried in the dryer although it used to be more correctly labeled "drip dry" on earlier models.

 

[turquoisedude]

And the very first run of them (1955 into mid-1956) had an "Omit Dry" pushbutton.

 

[DADoES]

 
Running a wash/rinse/spin without a following dry cycle wasn't an option/feature on all combos?

 

[frigilux]

A couple of members commented on the anemic spin speed of the GE Combo. Anyone have an rpm number to attach to that?

 

[turquoisedude]

208 rpm on the '55 and '56 models. Drip dry was definitely the term... LOL

I can't think of a Combo that did not offer a 'wash only' option - but I've only ever seriously messed with GE, Bendix, and Kenmore combos.

 

[peteski50]

Combo!

Every combo that I ever saw had a wash only option!

 

[tomturbomatic]

With the first Easy Combomatics the stopping point of the cycle depended on where you set the stop pointer on the dial. Gladys Taber, who wrote a column for Ladies' Home Urinal told of her daughter and family coming to visit one weekend. Only the housekeeper operated the machine, but she was not there so they loaded it up and started it. Needless to say, the end of the cycle was eagerly anticipated as the family had to get back to the city. So the thing finally stopped and while they were preparing to unload, it, it started again and they rescued semi soggy baby things from it. Obviously, they had messed with the STOP POINTER. The sadder part of the story was that she was the Equipment Editor.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The Great Big 33" wide Lady Kenmore Combo had auto dry cycles as well as timed ones like for wash 'n wear so you would be there when it stopped. Their dryers, along with WP dryers, had a timed wash 'n wear cycle for the same reason. The Lady had a setting on the dry timer dial for "wash only" which was not an auto dry cycle, but it was not marked in minutes. It gave a 20 minute high heat dry cycle to keep the dripping to a minimum if you line dried a load. They knew that extracting water from fabrics in that machine was about as possible as pumping enough water out of the Titanic to keep it afloat so they attacked it with heat. Unless there was a failure, I doubt that many owners skipped the dry cycle.