Mustee Duratub 93 - Vintage Laundry Sink & Cabinet

[daveamkrayoguy]

My late-in-laws had one & it looked exactly to me what old people would have in their laundry room...

That it even moved with them from their old house to their new, of course surprised me by the portability of it...

(Surely that newer house wouldn't have had anything in it that age-old, from the decade of when they'd gotten married!)

Interesting reading about it at AW.org here, too:

(Found while trying to search for this thread, and I am amazed and impressed by the many different cabinet designs, but the one here is the most-familiar, and what they had!)

-- Dave

POD 10/5/13 WP Suds-Miser & laundry tub

The tub full of hot wash water in this picture is probably made by Mustee. I have a newer one and the tub inside the metal cabinet is made of some type of soft plastic. If I have to wash anything large and delicate like a glass dome or a control panel, I put folded towels in the bottom of the...

www.automaticwasher.org

 

[brisnat81]

Was it not a thing in the US just to have a receptical on the back rear corner of the tub to take a washing machine hose? An integrated standpipe of sorts?

They were available here from the 50's onwards, the Washer hose went into the Integrated overflow that connected to the drain below the plug but above the trap and the suds saver hose drained into the 25gal tub.

This solution seems like the worse of both worlds, you still drain directly into the tub and if you overfilled the tub, it seems like you could drain/syphon back into the washer, unless you had the drain hose higher than the tub which the low connector doesnt allow for.

Is there an integrated syphon break?

 

[lowefficiency]

Which system are you referring to, Nathan?

In the early-style Handiflo, as shown in Reply# 9, the tub maintains an air-gapped overflow tube when used in a suds-saver configuration. Any excess water saved into the tub would simply flow over the top of the tube and down the drain, and any water intended to be drained (not saved) would flow on the other path straight down the tube with no possibility of siphoning back due to the air gap.

In the later style Handiflo, the one I am replicating, the spout is simply a drain... and as described in the patent document, this configuration is not intended for use with suds-saver washers. Therefore, the assumption would be that the tub drain would be open, and the water level would never reach a high enough point to be a siphon risk.

Neither has any provisions for handling an overflow of the main tub... but nor do standard utility sinks or dedicated standpipes.

I'm not familiar with the Australian system you've described, but Mustee states in their patent documents that a primary feature of their design was to eliminate all visible hoses. So any sink or tub with the hose draped over the edge, even into a dedicated receptacle, would have been counter to their goals.

 

[lowefficiency]

Small update - I redesigned my spout to give it a better flare - should help the water transition from the pipe to the spout more gracefully. Mustee specifically went a different route, a restrictor near the bottom of the tube, to force the water to transition to a sheet. No idea how mine will perform until we put some water through it!

 

[lowefficiency]

... and made a quick test print for fit testing. Unsure what color I will make the real spout.

 

[lowefficiency]

I removed the metal blockoff plates and the rubber gasket, and the fit of the new spout was perfect! A few things I would tweak slightly for the next iteration, but nothing major.

 

[lowefficiency]

How it looks from the back. It's ready for a water test, but I'll have to tackle the plumbing changes of actually installing the sink before I can do that.

I suppose I could also splice a section of hose from the A209, and just hold it above our utility sink as a test... we will see.

 

[gansky1]

Excellent work!  I kinda like the blue on the new spout, it adds character. 

 

[northwesty]

That

is pretty amazing

 

[dan]

Duratub 93

I came across this while looking for a replacement top and felt compelled to respond to this set of posts. I have a model 93 and just repainted the front and ordered a top for a model 91/94 with the expectation I may have to modify it a bit. My house was built in 1978 and I'm sure this tub is original to the house. I couldn't find anything new to fit my space that was a cupboard type cabinet. Everything was 24" wide (too big for my space) so I decided to work with the old duratub. I found the old sticker for it on the floor underneath it which told me it was a 93. That explained why none of the 94 spouts were like mine, which had the "suds saver" spout coming out from underneath the discharge spout. I always wondered what those were for since the previous owners just had a discharge tube draped over the edge of the tub and there was not a top anymore. The cabinet was pretty beat up but with some SOS on the chrome and some white spray paint I've made the whole thing socially acceptable again. I like the discharge hose spigot because it eliminates the hose just hangin over the top and will allow the new top to fit.

 

[lowefficiency]

Thanks for sharing, Dan.

I'm not sure that there was anything particularly special about the original faucet, other than that the tub cover had a matching hole cut in it so that any drips or accidental turning on of the faucet wouldn't flood over the side. If you are missing the top, I'm sure that one could be cut from a suitable plastic or other material, and then you could simply cut a similar round hole in that to match whatever replacement faucet you decided on.

Good luck!

 

[vintagegal]

3" duratub base has rusted out - possible fixes?

The metal base frame approx 3" high that the cabinet sits on has rusted out - do you have any suggestions on replacing just this part or other ways to fix it?

 

[lowefficiency]

Sometimes rust like that cleans up pretty easily with a wire brush and some rust-inhibiting paint. You might have to remove the plumbing and flip the cabinet around to know for sure.

 

[bradfordwhite]

In the 80s and 90s, I remember seeing those sudsaver tubs included in most new model homes in the midwest. 

 

In fact, the first home I built in 1991, I had one installed in the first floor laundry room. 

My parents 1985 built home has an Almond one.    My aunts 1972 built home had an Avocado one to match her 1972 Lady K set.  She used it all the time.

 

By 1991, the sudsaver trend was over.  There weren't many washers still being made with that option.

 

But you can still see them in listings.  I've found it to be mainly a midwest or upper midwest thing.  Can't remember seeing it on the coasts.

 

 

[bradfordwhite]

Yes they came in colors.

Even pink from the early 60s.  Most likely turquoise, sunny yellow, and 70s coffee.

 

Friends of my parents had a pink Lady Kenmore early 60s washer dryer set with a sudsaver connected to their duratub in their suburban split level.  It had that green fiber glass sink which looked weird.

 

Sears used to sell these.  I can't remember if that's where my aunt got hers.  But they did label them for Sears,

 

I can't remember ever seeing a harvest gold one but it's probably out there.  In the midwest you can find these at Habitat on occasion.

 

The stainless steel bracket around the drain spout moves up and down and is what holds the by-pass tube in place.  You place the tube with rubber gasket on base into the drain when you want to drain the spin water from the furthest forward spout direct into the drain and keep the wash water.   Then the long rubber sud saver hose which goes to almost the bottom of the sink can suck up the water in the next load.