Industry Firsts, appliance brand heritage

[jkbff]

I'm looking for ways to boost my sales knowledge... This site helps a lot with that, but I was thinking the questions I have should be documented somewhere because I know others have wonder the same things..

Please feel free to add anything you want, I know I won't be able to ask it all. Please post pics or advertisements if possible.

Who had the first side by side fridge?
First bottom mount freezer?
First glass top stove?
When did induction come out? (I saw a GE sales catalog from 97 that had induction profile ranges.)

Who made coldspot?

Stuff like that. Companies that made advancements in the industry, when they made design changes. When major trends happened, that kind of stuff.

When did stainless become a huge thing? Stainless for most thing has generally always been available, correct?

I love jogging customers down brand histories, its how I sell them on faith in the products.

Any info anyone wants to add would be appreciated!

 

[firedome]

Coldspot...

was Sears brand for fridges and possibly other stuff. Grandma had one.

 

[jkbff]

Was coldspot made by sears or made for sears like kenmore?

 

[circlew]

Coldspot was made by Seeger Refrigerator Co. until the mid 50's, when it was bought by Whirlpool Corp., which then changed it's name to Whirlpool-Seeger Corp. The name went back to Whirlpool Corp. in a few years.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I think I know some of these

but forgive me if I show my ignorance in being wrong as I am going from memory.

 

Bottom Freezer--I think was Amana, I remember Barbara Hale as their spokes person,. 

 

Smooth Top range was marketed under Corning I believe.  I used to look at them when at "The Electric Home" show room.  I think GE built the range for them.  From what I remember the cooking performance was pretty poor, this was late 60s early 70s.

 

[polkanut]

Sears also sold Coldspot dehumidifiers.  Mom & dad have one that's still going strong.

 

[wayupnorth]

As far as Appliance Brand Heritage, essentially today there is no bloodline other than the name they slap on it, you have the big foreign ones, LG, Samsung, etc. Electrolux took over WCI's brands and theres Whirlpool that took over Maytag and GE that may go to who knows. The only brand I would write home about that is reliable today is Speed Queen. My next door neighbors 6 year old Kenmore Elite refrigerator died this week. I feel that is a quality ripoff for planned corporate obsolescence.

 

[norgeway]

The first

Real side by side was the Foodarama by Kelvinator in the 1950s, Kelvinator was then owned by Nash Motors, in 54 it became American Motors,Frigidaire was owned thru the 70s by General Motors, Philco was owned by Ford from 1961 thru the mid 70s, Norge was owned by Borg Warner until 1969.

 

[jkbff]

The biggest hurdle I am trying to overcome is working with other sales people that only want to sell Samsung because of the offerings the company has for the reps to push their brand.

People come in, I need such and such appliance for whatever various reason, what do you suggest? The answer always is Samsung regardless of need... 90% of the time I know other products would be a better fit...

Even when it comes down to a basic coil top stove for canning, they try to push smooth top Samsungs. They don't even care that the glass top stoves have a high temp cutoff to protect the top, let alone having a heavy canning kettle on the glass that is so hot...

I seem to be battling an up hill battle here lol.

I appreciate the responses you guys have given so far Thanks!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Corning made the ribbon elements and the white cooking surface for the smooth top ranges sold under their name, but the oven was made by Frigidaire, if I remember correctly. Only Corning Smooth Top ranges used the special ribbon elements with the thermostat that was the same construction as the heating base for their Corning Ware Electromatic electric skillet which gave very even cooking, but only with the special Corning pans with the ground flat base. They were available in both Pyroceram and cast aluminum.

Induction cooking was shown by Westinghouse at the 1971 Atlanta Home Show. That was the first I saw it being offered.

 

[lordkenmore]

I don't know who made the first bottom mounted freezer. I do seem to recall Amana making them. But my parents had a Kelvinator with a bottom freezer. I have no idea when it was made, but it had a label someplace talking about American Motors, maker of the Rambler. According to Wikipedia, the Rambler was made by AMC 1954-1969.

That refrigerator was a topic of conversation with one baby sitter, who took one look, and asked if my parents had somehow modified a normal refrigerator.

One selling point to those bottom mount freezers is the huge convenience of having the fresh foods area higher (eye level, no/less stooping to grab something off a lower shelf). Although I suppose in today's world, for many, a top freezer does make life easier since the only need for a refrigerator is holding a stack of frozen dinners.

 

[petek]

GE was selling an induction stove back in the 80's called the Magnawave Range, for around $10,000 iirc. Then they disappeared, probably because of low sales, no wonder.  

 

[appnut]

Sears sold induction cooktops mid to late 1970s. 

 

[philr]

I can't tell which brand introduced the bottom-freezer refrigerator but many brands had them by 1954-55.

 

Some had a single exterior door with a bottom-mounted freezer and others had two separate doors. 

 

I know more about Frigidaire than other brands so I can tell you that Frigidaire introduced it's single door Cold Pantry in 1954 (as a 1955 model) and the two door Cold-Pantry a bit after the introduction of the other 1955 Frigidaire appliances as the two door 1955 model isn't covered in that year's Tech Talk. 

 

An ad for the two-door model. 

LIFE

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to...

books.google.com

A later ad for the single-door model which was introduced earlier (in 1954 as a 1955 model).

LIFE

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to...

books.google.com

 

Here are two ads for Admiral refrigerators from 1954: 

 

LIFE

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to...

books.google.com

 

LIFE

LIFE Magazine is the treasured photographic magazine that chronicled the 20th Century. It now lives on at LIFE.com, the largest, most amazing collection of professional photography on the internet. Users can browse, search and view photos of today’s people and events. They have free access to...

books.google.com

 

And according to these links, Amana introduced side by side refrigerators in 1949 but I can't find an ad for one of these: 

http://www.appliancedesign.com/articles/84310-amana-milestones

 

http://www.whirlpoolcorp.com/2010annual/brand-amana.html

 

According to the link above from the Whirlpool website, Amana introduced it's bottom-freezer model in 1957, but...

 

Here's an Amana bottom-freezer which is apparently from 1956: http://retrorenovation.com/2013/03/27/vintage-refrigerator-amana-stor-more/

 

And this ad for another Amana bottom-freezer is apparently from 1955 so the Whirlpool website is probably wrong about the introduction in 1957...

 

http://www.ecrater.com/p/21638407/1955-amana-stor-mor-freezer-refrigerator

 

 

 

 

[jkbff]

I LOVE that post!!

I can only imagine the quality of product these companies used to produce in their earlier days.

I had a couple come in yesterday with a bottom mount amana that they bought from us in 2003. It wasn't cooling. They brought it into town and the husband said they weren't leaving town without a fridge. Either a new one or that one fixed.

We tried a few times to get our fridge tech back to the store, while we waited, we measured the Amana because they said they had to modify their cabinets when they bought that fridge.

I showed the wife a GE Slate french door, but after getting a hold of their son, the measurements we had to deal with were 65" high, 34" wide. Nothing in this store fits it besides a 17cu top mount. After some digging, we found an LG french door that would fit the size needed. It was in stainless steel. She didn't want stainless lol.

They left to go eat while we waited on service to check out there Amana. They came back, the husband said he was upset with me because they decided that she wanted slate, but she was gonna get a slate range and dishwasher with the fridge, on top of having to take out a wall and move part of the cabinets.. LOL.

The service guy came walking back and said its a $50 dollar part that was needed to fix the fridge, he got it running... They were ready to purchase their stuff and I said "well, we can do this and get it all lined out, or you can drive around back and pick your fridge up and take it home, its cooling now and ready to go.."

The husband about fell over lol. The wife was mad because she wanted the new appliances. I asked the service guys if a repair like that was possible with the modern stuff and he said if it were a samsung or LG the repair would be north of $400 for the parts alone.

Nothing is made to last or be repaired anymore..

 

[norgeway]

I love to

Hear salesmen tell about how inefficient old refrigerators are, and how much they cost to run...then I make it a point to challenge them to prove it, !If there is a 50s fridge on their floor I show the rating plate, then the rating plate on these new so called energy efficient boxes...the old ones usually pull 2 to 3 amps , the new ones that are self defrosting pull 8 or more amps because of the defrost heaters etc..anything that heats for a time to melt frost of course has to run much more to cool down from the heat surge, that and the old 50s fridges have a big old quiet running American built compressor, Frigidaire, Coldspot ,Whirlpool and Norge have Rotary compressors, which run practically forever.

 

[kb0nes]

Rating plate doesn't tell anything about efficiency

it only shows peak draw. Efficiency is all about power consumed over time for a given size machine, the name plate doesn't address that.

Of course a self-defrosting model will have fans to run and a heater that cycles from time to time. The salesperson shouldn't comparing a modern refrigerator to an old manual defrost one. Its not like many people would even give any consideration to a non self-defrost model today.

But if you want to compare apples to apples take a vintage self-defrost model and plug it into a Kill-A-Watt watt/hour meter for a week. Now do the same with a comparable late model unit. This comparison will be fair and the modern unit will be higher efficiency. I think the salesman's point is likely valid in this context.

It is conceivably possible that an old manual defrost unit is more efficient then a newer self-defrost model. But I'd still run that test just for fun.

 

[repair-man]

New fridges only draw the rated amperage during defrost. That's maybe 20 minutes twice a day. The compressor and fans will run well under 2 amps combined maybe even close to 1 amp on a modern unit.

 

[DADoES]

 
Kill-a-Watt meter some while ago reported 100-ish watts some of the time on my 2004 GE Arctica with variable-speed compressor.