Machines that are prone to Over-Sudsing--and Why?

[daveamkrayoguy]

Yes, which brands are the vintage washers, top loaders & front loaders, that can get into suds-lock?

And what about those brands, invincible to it?

How exactly is a washer engineered or constructed in a way that can handle or combat over-sudsing, or needing low-sudsing detergent because it is highly sensible to detergent that isn't?

-- Dave

 

[norgeway]

the ones that make more suds

Are generally the machines with vigorous washing action,Frigidaire, Norge, GE,Kelvinator, , and the front loaders which really move the water, Maytags wont suds lock, because their action is so gentle it doesent slosh the water much.Whirlpools and Kenmores are sort of in the middle

 

[launderess]

Don't think any automatic or even semi-automatic washer

Is truly immune to effects of suds lock. If the thing spins (or one uses a separate extractor) then excess froth will be a problem, especially when machine spins. Wringer washers OTOH would largely been immune.

As for the washing creating froth, using a standard high sudsing detergent washers such as Frigidaire's pulsators and any others with a strong/vigorous wash action likely would have issues.

The stronger movement is from agitation adds that much more "air" to the water/detergent or soap mix.

Look at the difference in sudsing for this "Jet Action" washer on "hand wash" versus "Normal".



Then you have something like this:



OTOH there is Maytag.....

suds lock?

Could one of you mechanical chemical geniuses (I mean that non-sarcastically) please explain suds lock? How would something as weak as a soap bubble slow down something as strong as an electric motor driven washing machine?

www.automaticwasher.org

 

[akronman]

suds lock

IMHO, it's easiest to sudslock a belt drive WP/Kenmore than most others, but it can certainly happen to Maytags and GE's. It seems to result from too much soap and/or towels and thick material that slowly release their wash water during spinning. Sheets and dress shirts, thin materials, seem to spin out all their wash water really quickly and don't suds lock.

 

[gyrafoam]

Back when most detergents were high-sudsing I would have to say the Whirlpool/Kenmore's were the ones most affected. But every thing else could be sudzlocked as well. My best friends mother regularly sudz-locked her '65 Maytag with "Lemon Freshened FAB" all the time. Add some jeans to a Maytag and there is going to be a lot of splashing and sloshing going on! The Frigidaire Unimatic was pretty good about it and the Pulsamatic not so much. The Multimatics and Rollermatics much easier to suds lock. The 1-18's and the Westinghouse top-loaders were just as bad as the Whirlpool/Kenmore's. So was the big Blackstone.
The GE could do a pretty good job of locking up with sudz as well. I knew someone who choked her GE machine with "Cheer" all the time. Some would stall, some would plod along slowly trying to get to the rinse-fill and take a break. Some would just pop the motor overheat switch and the user would come back to discover a soggy load of unrinsed clothes.

Strangely, I don't every remember seeing an old Kelvy oversuds.

I never saw a front-loader that wouldn't over-sudz. It used to be bad. Especially women who were used to constantly adding detergent to a manual machine, keeping a good layer of sudz on top----and switching to a front-load automatic.
I used to get a lot of amusement in an old Westinghouse front-loader Laundromat watching the rows of machines vomiting sudz from their detergent chutes all over the floor. It was hilarious to watch the women completely ignore the instructions on the wall to "measure carefully" about 1/4 cup, and dump a cup or so of Tide or DUZ into the little Westinghouse. Then they would raise hell with the poor attendant because the machine couldn't rinse out the sudz! No wonder front-loaders never found much favor in the US until recent years and HE detergents.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

The DaveAMKrayoGuy Belt-Drive:

Ah-ha! But could it also be the detergent that I use?

Here is the washing, and maybe I'll show you a pic of the rinse, also with a lot of "zudz"...!

-- Dave

 

[bajaespuma]

Very vigorous agitation plus filtration

Our Filter-Flo's oversudsed frequently but I don't remember any of them having a suds-lock. I never heard the term until I visited this site. I remember early in 1962, the first year we had a Filter-flo, a GE repairman came to the house and told my Mother to switch from FAB to DASH because a suds cake had floated a sock over the rim of the washbasket and into the outer tub where it got stuck in the drain hole. From that point forward we used DASH exclusively.

My Grandmother bought a similar Filter-Flo the very next year; she solved the problem by running the two-speed machine always on GENTLE/SLOW.

 

[gyrafoam]

Yes, the GE's would just slow down and save all the sudz for the rinse cycle. A lot of machines used to do that.

 

[DADoES]

 
The '62 WP suds-locked if anyone looked at it.  The '76 WP never had that problem. 

 

[frigilux]

The early Kenmores with a 1/3-hp motor seemed especially prone to suds-lock. Our 1960 Model 80 and the 1959 Lady Kenmore I had locked up frequently.

The first spin on those machines was 4 minutes long. Spray rinses (four of them, if I recall correctly) began during the last two minutes. Quite often the excess suds would just about be eliminated right about the time the spray rinses began. Once those started, the poor things would almost immediately return to a crawl and suds would flow in though the holes in the tub when filling for the rinse began. That, and a big belch of foamy suds would be the first thing out of the otherwise groovy waterfall lint filter.

 

[lesto]

Our old 59 GE filter flo was very prone to over sudsing when using Tide. That otherwise silly suds kill pause during the first spin came in handy.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Well, like I said, here are some more pics, of the machine rinsing, draining, using cold wash water, as opposed to the hot or warm wash, which makes/made the suds more active, and even with a different detergent (All, which is supposedly low-sudsing, if not less-sudsing), all this until, as a '90's Kenmore, my washer gets things out of the realm of VINTAGE ('70's-to-'80's) machines:

-- Dave

 

[washerlover]

Tide

I remember it didn’t matter what machine was used, but Tide laundry detergent was always prone to the oversudsing problem in older machines..!

 

[launderess]

One "vintage" detergent one never really bothers with collecting is Tide, the stuff just creates too much forth to be useful.

No matter which machine one uses; Hoover TT, Miele or AEG front loader, and even the Maytag wringer one has better things to do with one's time than rinse, rinse and rinse.

 

[mrb627]

Whirlpool DD Machines

I think a lot of the sudsing in a DD machine is due to the pump running backwards during agitation and sucking air. Someone posted a video a while back with the cabinet removed, showing the bubbles rising from the sump area in the front left corner of the tub.

Malcolm

 

[DADoES]

 
Yeah, but I don't recall ever having sudslock with a DD like with a BD.  DDs may suds-up in some instances but they handle the situation OK.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

“Vintage”—long-overdue correction:

Hnmmm....—I shouldn’t have forgotten, ‘50’s and ‘60’s and even before those decades, but how long had this been a problem, conducive to good, thorough machine-washing?

— Dave

 

[gelaundry4ever]

GE filter-flo

My GE filter-flo never had that problem. There would be a mountain of suds especially on small water level with the machine set to cold, but by the time spray rinse is over, the suds are gone. And of course, we've typically used normal/fast.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Machines with perforated baskets tended to whip air into the water being spun out. Solid tub machines mostly just dumped the sudsy water into the outer tub where, in most cases, the pump just sucked it away.