Ozone Dryer Light

[johnrk]

I've noticed, in the 1966 brochure on the Westinghouse front-loader pair I purchased on this site, that it states that the dryer has an ozone light--"germicidal lamp purifies the air in the dryer."

Was this common in that period?

 

[appnut]

John, yes ultraviolet lights were common in dryers (and some washers) back then.  Parents' friends had a 1954 Hamilton gas dryer with said light.  Saw many Kenmore dryers and a few Kenmore washers too as well as comparable Whirlpool models. 

 

[petek]

I remember my moms first Kenmore dryer from the 50's had one. When it burned out some years later I don't think she ever had it replaced. 

 

[norgeway]

Another

Great thing you cant get anymore!

 

[gyrafoam]

A huge selling point during the days of Polio and when people washed pails of stanky, dirty diapers, teeming with cooties, along with everything else. Gevault! Cold Water Wash-----NAAAAH! Hot water and lots of Chlorine Bleach------YAAAAH!

Quick, shine the blue light on it!

 

[turquoisedude]

The ozone light in dryers seemed to appear fairly early on - possibly as early as the late 1940s.  I don't know if it's the ozone light or the drying system, but clothes dried in an older Frigidaire Filtrator dryer smell wonderful!  I'd better be careful or I'm going to wear out my '51 Frigidaire dryer, I use it that much... LOL 

 

I have the ozone lights in the 1956 Whirlpool and the 1966 Inglis dryers, but the '65 Lady Kenmore (which, thank goodness, still works...LOL) no longer had one.    Likewise, the '56 Whirlpool washer and '66 Inglis washers have an ozone tub light.  It just looks cool... 

 

[tomturbomatic]

Low airflow dryers and no air flow dryers like condensers made the most of the ozone lamps' ability to make wonderful perfume when they combined the ozone with the steam and fragrance of hot cotton. That was the one thing about ironing that I liked--the delightful fragrance of hot cotton. You can still purchase ozone lamps if you search Google diligently and correctly. The thing is that you have to have a ballast for the older bulbs which was served by a 40 watt incandescent bulb that operated while the dryer was operating. Most of the effect of the ozone generated by the bulb was lost in high air flow dryers.

http://https//www.1000bulbs.com/product/5185/AU-LGTL3.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI472jv9f81gIVCySGCh3qkwg6EAYYBiABEgIbhvD_BwE

 

[frigilux]

Don't know if ozone and ultraviolet lamps are similar, but my 1959 Lady Kenmore washer had an ultraviolet lamp, ostensibly to kill germs. I have the gravest doubts it did anything of the kind, but it did make the layer of suds 'pop' visually; akin to how the colors of a blacklight poster would jump out at you.

On perfuming: Our 1960 Kenmore Model 80 dryer had a bottle of 'air freshener' in the console. You could control how much, if any, scent you wanted in a load. The bottle stood upright in a little well in the console and a rubber hose coming out of the top lead to a hole in the base of the console. No idea where it went from there. The bottle of air freshener had to be changed every six months or so.

 

[akronman]

ozone lights

My 1950 Hamilton has one, as does my 1960 KM/WP. Other KM/WP from that era don't, it seems very iffy.

While I bet it was pure marketing gimmicks, nevertheless, when you walk into a hospital today, or nursing home, there are germicidal lights on the walls.
Who knows?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Ozone bulbs were put in dryers to give the clothes a fresh smell like outdoor drying.

Yes, ozone bulbs and ultraviolet bulbs are the same. It is ultraviolet light that breaks up the diatomic oxygen into single atoms that bond with diatomic oxygen to form O3. Lightning does it which is part of the reason the air smells so fresh after a thunderstorm.

 

<span data-dobid="hdw"> o·zone</span>

<span class="lr_dct_ph">ˈōˌzōn/</span>

noun

noun: ozone

a colorless unstable toxic gas with a pungent odor and powerful oxidizing properties, formed from oxygen by electrical discharges or ultraviolet light. It differs from normal oxygen (O₂) in having three atoms in its molecule (O₃).

 

 

[maytag85]

I wounder how my Maytag DG810 gas dryer would be like if it had an ozone bulb. Having an ozone bulb in a dryer must be a good feature to have, and would make my soft and fluffy.

 

[tomturbomatic]

It has nothing to do with soft and fluffy and like I wrote earlier, with modern high airflow dryers, you do not notice the ozone because the small amount produced is so diluted in the large volume of air.

 

[kd12]

Sears scent bottle

I remember someone on here had a turquoise 1963 70 or 80 series dryer with an original scent bottle still attached. Did anyone besides Sears use the scent bottles in the dryer?

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

"What about "U-V Sunshine Lamps? Forget It!" --

Finding out about those Ultraviolet "Sunshine" Lamps, I remember thinking how cool they must be--spoofs, skits & sit-coms of dryers showed that purplish light bursting out of open dryers...

I used to make a purple magic marker blot, covered w/ a dark blue right over it, when I drew pictures of appliances (or diagrams of) and designated light bulbs or made actual light & bulbs...

How cool it would be in these times, fearful w/ germs if they could be used in the machines of today, even given with their frail quality...

-- Dave

 

[DADoES]

 
<blockquote>kd12:  Did anyone besides Sears use the scent bottles in the dryer?</blockquote> GE had the feature on some TOL models.  One console I've seen in a picture had what appears to be two push-to-start buttons but one was the bottom of the scent canister.

 

[turquoisedude]

Yes!  Glenn, I was trying to remember who else did the scent bottle and it eluded me.  Shame on me as I own a 1957 GE dryer with that feature (also had a '58 at one point). 

 

[akronman]

my 1966 Premier

My 1966 GE Premier dryer has the bottle of scent

 

[tomturbomatic]

That GE air freshener had the best perfume. When I went to the appliance department, I would always press one of the air fresheners. GE said for it to be most effective, it should be dispensed in the last few minutes of drying since it basically was shot into the air over the dryer and was passively sucked in, unlike the Kenmore system which did a constant feed.

 

[gyrafoam]

I had a late sixties Hamilton dryer with a "Sun-E-Day" ozone lamp. Since it had a window, it was cool to watch at night with the lights in the room off. Clothes passing through a purple light. Timothy Leary would have loved it.
It resides in John's museum now.

Whenever I think of ozone lights I think of Kenmores. Functional or not it still looked cool to me.