Hi, Diomede and Louis!
Yes, I remember those MIELE machines - they were quite handy! It did not mean to boil clothes seperately in a copper-boiler first anymore and then transfer them by hand into the tub or tub-washer to get them really clean by washing them.
This was the most dangerous part of the former washing in the laundry-room (Waschküche) in those times. The moment mum had opened the boiler, the whole room was filled with thickest steam, and she had to transfer the boiling hot items, like bed linnen and stuff, with woodden sticks and tongs from the boiler into the wooden tub-washer - totally blind! After the washing action it had also to be rinsed and therefor to be transferred again by hand into a concrete rinse-basin or other seperate tub !
This MIELE washer did all that by just opening and shutting some valves for cold water and drainage and switching the electric motor on or off. For heating up the wash water there was the furnace underneath and some had even a back-boiler fitted to the escape flue that produced hot water for the first hot rinse by the way. Not until the final rinse was done and the washing pre-drained in the drum, it had to be taken out and dewatered by a seperate spinner or (manual or hydraulic) press before hanging it up on the line in the attic or outside, in the garden.
These washers with gas-engines were made for those houses that had no electicity yet and gave the women the opportunity to let the hard work of the actual washing be done by machine instead by hand. I have never heard of those machines in Germany maybe because we used to had these quite popular hydraulic-motors (Wassermotor) instead as water-pressure here on the pipes is quite strong and has always been. So, the water could first do a job, namely to drive the washing machine, before it was used for rinsing in these concrete rinsing-basins, where it was led into via the escape-hose of the motor!
Ralf
