Neutral Drain Top Loaders - A Query

[bwoods]

Darren,

I never thought about it until you mentioned, it but my Gneral Electric filter flows always pause a while before going into spin. I awlays tought that was a real wastae of time, but I bet you are right.

GE was giving time for the solids to settle out and get sucked out the holes in the bottom of the tub as soon as the pump started. The soap suds, scum and lint would still be floating on top of the water to be whirled away into the outer tub as soon as the spin started.

I always just thought in was a quirk in their timer design. My stupidity in overlooking the obvious-, and underestimating the insight of the GE engineers.

 

[akronman]

Pause before spin

I never thought that pause was built in for any aspect of cleanliness or rinsing, I thought it was simply mechanically needed on a reversing motor, one click of the timer pause between motor turning one way and then the other. If the marketing folks want to claim it lets solids settle, fine, but it's just for electro/mech purposes of reversing the motor.

 

[foraloysius]

I beg to differ then

Assuming that scum is floating on top of the water, with a neutral drain it sinks onto the clothes. With a spin drain, it goes through the holes in the tub. The clothes stay under water during the spin drain as you can see in the movie with the Maytag. So the floating dirt is not being spun through the clothes.

 

[bwoods]

It makes sense, if a spin started immediately after agitation, solids would not have time to settle out. Some would, of course, spin out through the holes, but many like sand may get entrapped with folds and wrinkles of the clothing. So a pause ebfore drain is a win win situation. You win in that its not as hard on the motor, going directly into reverse, and you win in that solids do settle out due to gravity.

 

[foraloysius]

Considering that there is dirt and dirt, I would think that dirt that is heavy, like sand, would reach the bottom long before the end of the wash. Sand is probably waiting there to be pumped out long before the pause.

If you have a bucket of water that you used for cleaning something, there is always a lot of dirt on the bottom. I guess neutral drain or spin drain doesn't make much of a difference.

Then there is the dirt that was dissolved by the detergent and perhaps some that has the same specific gravity. I guess it doesn't make much of a difference either. Most of it will be drained through the clothes either way since it is all through the wash water.

But looking again at those videos here, made me realise there is also dirt that is lighter than water. I guess a neutral drain lets that dirt sit on top of the laundry, while a spin drain might spin that out over the laundry.

 

[bwoods]

Very heavy particles, like sand and grit, will be disturbed. and help in temporary suspension, by agitation and the movement of the clothes, and water currents. When water velocity drops to zero during the pause, they quiet down and settle out.

 

[mrb627]

Modern ND Machines

Seems that every Whirlpool based DD machine I see with some miles on it has a pronounce scum line left at the waterline around the tub and agitator. And that short spray at the start of the final spin, is it a rinse or trick to deflate any suds left on top of the load?

Discuss...

 

[jetcone]

Barry -

from doctrine: your theory about sand held in suspension doesn't hold water I'm afraid. Frigidiare states in their 1-18 service manual for the early S & T models that the holes in the tub at the bottom are placed so ( around the jet cone ) that they will allow all the solids -sand dirt etc to actually "drop out" at the moment the JetCone is at its top dead center or its bottom dead center. At both points F says the water in the tub being incompressible is completely paused with the JetCone and this allows the sand to drop out immediately.

Then the swooshing of the jetcone creates a wall of water currrent that brushes the sand across the holes in the tub, the bottom of the tub is designed for this , and the sand falls down the holes to the outer tub.

Ofcourse as we all know, F then moved the holes around 1972-3 to the outer bottom so all the sand trapped at the bottom would be swooshed out by the spin drain.

Wether there is any truth to this I can't say. I have never observed the bottom of a 1-18 tub in full action!!

Gansky1 love your reveal there!!

However -qsd-dan is correct Launderess has opened a nice can of worms for a Sunday afternoon!

 

[bwoods]

????

Your statement agrees completely with what I just said, Jon. Frigidaire stated the water is "completely paused" amd the dirt "drops out."

That is exactly what I stated. That is not a theory however, solids in suspensions will settle out as velocity of water movement decreases. With the larger (all other factors such as density being equal) settling first.

That "theory" is responsible for the gradaton of alluvial and fluvial deposits in streams and lakes.

We are both saying the exact same thing.

Hence, that miraculous and revolutionary development, holes in the bottom of a tub.

 

[yogitunes]

WOW....you guys are going in and on about this.....and it appears simple, as for a solid tub, outside of sediment falling to the bottom and ejected, overflo rinsing allows the floating scum to do just tha, float over the edge to the outter tub, and away from the laundry.....

perforated tubs, makes no difference, spin or neutral, ALL strain the water thru the clothes, one way or another.....nuff said.....

the only difference a neutral drain can cause, is soap/scum/grease remains at the top of the outter tub/splash guard during drain, and never gets flushed away.....potential for a smelly disgusting washer.....hats not to say that a spin drain doesn't pick up speed enough the throw the water from the outter tub back over ones laundry......

BUT THE BOTTOM LINE.....is that you are using proper washing techniques.....water temp and a good detergent...THAT should keep all soil suspended in the wash water....there should not be a problem for anyone, or any machine!....PERIOD

 

[bwoods]

I think everyone agrees, Martin, if you don't have a good detergent you ain't gonna have clean clothes, ha. Yes, "period"

I think rinsing effectiveness varies quite a bit from machine to machine. With the spin drain the suds are removed quickly without using additonal water to do it, and the surface suds are not filtered through the clothes.

Overflow rinses and sprays during spin (as in the older Whirlpools eventually clear suds work but use water and take longer. In an oversudsings event (which we probably all have been quilty of, now and then) a spin drain will often clear the machine of suds, without sudslock, even before the first rinse begins (and in some cases even before the first spray rinse hits).

If a machine doesn't rinse well, you still have dirt held in suspension by detergent in your clothes. So you are wearing resdiual dirt and detergent to work everyday.

With some of todays Energy Star machines, there is nothing stellar about the way they rinse. The lower water levels in the rinse barely allow the clothes to circulate, in some of the machines, let alone clear the fabric of residual detergent/dirt scum. ugh

 

[jetcone]

Xlent Barry

I didn't even see how we are on the same page!! Yehaw!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Ah, but what about the solid tub machines that use water for overflow rinses before the spin? Not disputing you, just mentioning something you did not mention in your statement when you said that the spin drain gets rid of suds without spray rinsing. GE, Maytag, & Frigidaire 1-18s are among those that, in addition to spin-draining, used a spray rinse. Hotpoint, I believe, used a spray rinse in the spin in their solid tub machine at some point.

 

[bwoods]

I did mention overflow rinses, Tom. Please re-read. I just said they use additional water. So do the GE and Frigidaire 1 - 18's that I have when they spray after the start up of the spin-drain.

Maybe I didn't state things clearly. I'll try again.

What I am saying is that I rarely see any suds by the time the deep rinse portion of a spin-drain machine, even when I have an oversudsing event. I also stated that sometimes, the spin-drain is so effective that occasionally, I see all the suds gone even before the spray portion of that spin drain begins.

I am not saying that spin-drain machines don't need a spray rinse, I never even heard of one that doesn't do a spray rinse. Just because the suds are gone from the tub doesn't mean you don't still have detergent residue in the clothes. This is evidenced by what comes out of the drain hose when the spray hits the clothes during the spin!

 

[jetcone]

1956 GE Filter Flo

no spray rinses ever! I used to haul the drain hose back out of the set tub to spray the clothes when my mom wasn't around!---TELL NO ONE!!!!

And I only did that because I had just seen Mrs. Cusano's 1956 Kenmore do a spray rinse when blew my mind as I had never seen a machine do that before!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Two of our neighbors had Kenmore waterfall machines before the got Filter Flo machines around 59 or 60. I and they were amazed at how the rinse water was so clear without a spray rinse, but many have said that without the suds residue in the outer tub, the solid tub machines could rinse better. I remember when the Kenmores we had started filling for the rinse, as the water level rose to the bottom of the inner tub, it brought with it a thin film of suds and this was with a low sudsing detergent.

 

[ingliscanada]

I also don't believe that a neutral drain is a bad thing, only because WP were successful and popular washers for 50-plus years, and they always had neutral drain.

Gary

 

[mikeklondon]

Balance

It looks to me that a machine with a spin drain balances the load better ?

 

[qsd-dan]

It looks to me that a machine with a spin drain balances the

Not really.
 
Good balancing has more to go with the suspension design than spin/neutral drains.
 
Actually, if one were to use the same identical suspension setup (remember, we're dealing with theory here), a neutral drain would probably balance a bit better because the clothes are clumped and spun at the bottom of the tub. Dealing with clumped clothing in higher portions of the tub wreak more havoc on the suspensions of top the loaders, due to physics.

Maytag used a good suspension design by 1966. The older design wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either. GE Filter Flo's......well, not as good, and they lacked an out of balance switch, so they'd literally bash themselves to smithereens if a badly out of balance situation occurred. My 1963 Frigidaire WCI-63 that I use to have would bash the inner tub into the outer tub once out of every 4 spins while ramping up to speed. Not a good suspension design there either, IMO.

 

[beekeyknee]

My Goodness, What A Thread.

Here is my take on the whole thing. In the 80's I used to have an old 60's Speed Queen set (solid tub of course) and I believe SQ and Frigidaire (and some others) had a good idea with the overflow rinse. It seemed to work a little better on the SQ's because the fins on the agitator seemed to push the suds toward the o/f better than the chaser ring. Can't say that for sure because I didn't ever have one, but from what I've read on here over the years, SQ seemed to do a better job of pushing away the suds.

When I had my SQ, by the time the spin started all the suds were gone and the water was clear, but that was before I had a w/s, which would make a difference in the amount of suds; always does. One uses less soap in soft water. As far as sand, we didn't work on a farm. The most we did was work in the yard; mostly mowing. By the end of the cycle the clothes were very clean and soap free, as far as we could tell. Very smooth and soft and not much smell at all. We had a gay girl living with us at the time and sometimes she would come in very dirty. Her clothes always came out clean too. That SQ didn't have a very big capacity, but sometimes I really miss it. It was such a cool machine. What did it in was when the solenoid would bang up to engage the drive block, the block would slip in and out and the machine would have intermittent agitation. Unfortunately I didn't try to fix the problem and just threw out the machine, which I really regret now. I had a business to run and other things on my mind and I thought there would be other machines out there to purchase that would be just a good. I was in for a big disappointment.

In my current Maytag experiences, the results are about the same, except if I put too much soap in the wash the rinsing isn't as good, as we have soft water now. Launderess is correct that rinsing seems better in harder water, but according to tests done on this site by other members, that can be deceiving. The hard water seems like it's rinsing better because it suppresses sudsing action, but the suds may still be there. Even in the sink when I try to rinse dish liquid out of the dish cloth and down the drain, it takes much longer to rinse the suds away. In hard water I think it may still be there but doesn't show itself. I don't know how else to justify this phenomenon. Anyway, this summer when our w/h was a complete disaster, I had purchased and 80's BOL Maytag to steal the trans and agitator out of for a rebuild of an older series 0. Since It was on the patio and I had hoses for hot and cold water, I manually filled the machine and washed outside. I felt like a woman on wash day 50 years ago. When it came time for the spray rinse I would turn the cold water hose up on full blast and spray the clothes for nearly the whole spin cycle. By the time it was over the water coming out of the drain hose was completely clear. If the Maytag would spray a large volume of water for the whole wash spin, I believe the results would be better. But this might run up a water bill quite a bit. It certainly gave good results.

Back to the solid tub machines. I have never had a problem with them and I was always please with the results. I was always amazed at how dry the clothes would come out with no perforations in the tub and sand was never a problem for us. I guess it depends on ones living situations.