Philips TopTwin De Luxe Boiling - Lessiveuse Style

[launderess]

My older Miele

Along with other machines I've seen from the 1970's, 1960's and even 1980's has a pre-wash as part of the *Normal* long cottons/linens program. The cycle starts with cold and gradually heats water to warm. Once the cycle is done the machine drains and then fills for the main wash.

The "short" cycle skips the pre-wash and part of the main wash cycle for a quicker wash. Owner's manual states this cycle was good for "lightly soiled" washing.

Almost every good housekeeper learned as a girl you don't "wash in dirty water"; that is you don't do laundry especially whites/lights in water that is heavily soiled. Again this is a hold over from when laundry was bucked/pre-soaked before washing. Even today many commercial laundries run one, two or three short wash cycles instead of one long. Either way the rationale is the same; you want to keep soil that is removed from settling back onto washing.

Modern detergents do a pretty good job of keeping soils/muck suspension even without phosphates. However if you have a really truly dirty load of whites, especially one with lots of surface muck, try pre-washing it first.

In particular when using hot or boiling water to wash you don't want mucky water. With the textile fibers opened from the heat what was liberated (dirt) can also become trapped again if it settles out. This is especially true if temp is allowed to drop (soaking started with hot or boiling water then allowed to cool), or if the boiling wash water is replaced too quickly with cool or cold water.

I use a cold pre-wash before a very hot or boil wash to save energy with the Miele. This way can start the wash cycle with hot water and allow it reach hotter or boil temperatures faster and using less energy. Because the Miele has "cycle guarantee" regardless of how fast the machine reaches the proper temperature wash times remain the same. On the Oko-Lavamat it is a different story. If the machine reaches the set temperature faster than programmed it will subtract the allotted time from the balance of the cycle.

 

[jetcone]

So I could get those

gray facecloths clean white again? They are a toughy! Facial dirt is deeply embedded and hard to remove. Over here would you use Oxy Clean for boiling or buy pure sodium perborate for boiling? 

 

[launderess]

Oxi-clean isn't the best oxygen bleach choice out there. The stuff is mostly sodium carbonate (washing soda) and the remainder sodium percarbonate.

Can see if using a laundry liquid how washing soda would be necessary, but most detergent powders contain more than enough alkaline builders. All oxygen bleaches work better under alkaline pH (hence the reason ammonia is often added when bleaching with hydrogen peroxide liquid), but sodium percarbonate supplies its own.

Sodium perborate possibly could benefit from an alkaline pH but again most powdered detergents contain enough. Thing about SB over SP is that all borates including Borax are difficult to rinse from textiles. All things considered you'll probably need more rinsing and perhaps a neutralizer when using SB than SP.

Best way to keep anything that touches one's skin white is to not use it until grossly filthy and launder often. Sleeping on bed sheets for a week then chucking them into the hamper for another or so until laundering will sooner or later lead to that yellow staining all so common.

Thing is even with the most careful rinsing all cotton fabrics retain some detergent/soils after laundering. Subsequent washing just builds upon what remained before. Years ago persons would "strip" textiles by using heavy amounts of phosphates and hot or boiling water but no detergent for one or more washes.

 

[foraloysius]

Newer EU machines (1960's - 1990's) were all able to heat the wash water up to 90°C or 95°C depending on the brand. After energy got more expensive here on a lot of washing machines the "E-button" was introduced. Depending on the brand it lowered the temperature, lowered the temperature and extended the wash cycle or extended the wash cycle where you had to choose a lower temperature yourself.

In the sixties there were still real boil wash machines available from Constructa and some other brands that mainly paid Constructa for using their patent.



I still like doing my whites at a higher temperature. I do that on a 70°C/158°F. With a profile wash ending up at that temperature it gives the same smell as a real boil wash. And it makes my whites whiter than washing at 60°C/140°F.

 

[chestermikeuk]

Philips TopTwin Twintub

H Louis, have just posted some pics on Flikr of Mathews (Keymatic3203) wonderful washer , its a lovely machine to use, The master switch controls the main wash motor and pump so always on, Think Wringer, the wash timer switch starts the wash action engaging the geardrive, The spinner has a a slide bar / lock which starts its motor. The outlet pipe is like the Hoovermatics having a pull lever to engage the wash drain otherwise its pumping the spin can.

The Laundry Washcodes of the 7 HLCC (Home Laundry Care Council) main wash programmes of the time are etched in the glass console panel along with wash temperatures and spin timings.

http://https//www.flickr.com/photos/chestermikeuk/sets/72157656547916480/with/20400220925/

 

[foraloysius]

Thank you Mike! Great pictures!

 

[launderess]

Hoovermatic with "Boil Wash Action"

Hoover was quick to equate strong agitation of laundry giving the same effects as boiling.

 

[chestermikeuk]

Lessiveuse Style

Good morning Launderess, the above marketing must have been a marketers dream although those models did have a heater and could "Boil" your wash, am not sure you could get away with it today ha ha....

Many of the "Copper" washboilers where still found in homes and in working order up until the 60 / 70`s here in the UK, many of our historic attractions show them in situ in the laundry, indeed my last home had a series of outbuilding rooms from the main kitchen which was a scullery (wet room with sink for washing dishes, a utility with copper washboiler and coal fire underneath with chimney , outside loo and coalhouse....Here are pics of a usual Copper arrangement with coal box underneath as well as the large mangle rollers, the dolly tub, glass rubbing board and posser to plunge and move the clothes around!!

 

[chestermikeuk]

Pre 1960`s Gas WashBoilers

Up until the electric washing machine was mass produced then a family of Gas fired WashBoilers where available of often seen in many UK homes, they where manufactured by firms such as Dean and Slaxon, a simple galvanised tub with a gas burner underneath and a tap at the front for emptying, usually found with a mangle on top although many of the early Deans with half moon lid where simple water heaters for all purpose use!!

 

[chestermikeuk]

Electric Washboilers

Our most famous range of washboilers are indeed the "Burco" range, which had a familiar blue and white paint on galvanised steel tubs. Indeed the "Baby Burco" was the appliance most seen in house`s as well as small catering establishments such as local church hall, schools and the most treasured of them all "the WI Womens Institutes up and down the land often used for boiling the water for the British Cuppa and another for steeping all those tea towels!!

 

[jetcone]

I dug in my Miele history book this am

They made a boil washer too.

 

 

 

[launderess]

Thing To Remember About All This Boiling/Heating Of Water

By washing machines in Europe versus the lack thereof in North America (historically) was how source of hot water evolved between the two.

For various reasons most if not many European homes do not have large central water heaters. Water is heated by the machines which require (dishwashers, washing machines), and then you have units of various sizes supplying the taps. The latter could be whole house or by areas of home.

American and to an extent Canadian homes went the other way with usually a main source of hot water (boiler or heater) which his then sent throughout the home.

To my knowledge the American market never had a washing machine with self heating capabilities. Dishwashers didn't get them for years either, again preferring to draw water from the main hot water source.

Going back to early days commercial laundries on both sides of the ponds (so called "steam laundries") had washing machines that relied upon a heating source (steam), but that is where things ended. Even today in much of Europe laundromat washers usually heat their own water. OTOH that is totally nonexistent in American versions. This probably goes a long way to explain the poor results often seen from exclusive use of American Laundromats. Unless one uses chlorine bleach (and often even then) the results are sooner or later dingy and dull whites.

Even the much highly spoken of Speed Queen front loaders still refuse to have internal heaters. Electrolux/Laundrylux machines used in Paris have internal heaters, but those in the USA do not.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

I don't know, all of the laundromats i can see over here have machines who wouldn't self heat not even wash in hotter water than warm...forget boiling point.
Just once, as a little boy, we were in a nice touristic village in Palma de Maiorca, and I remember there was this laundromat with a row of brownish/reddish console Lavamats the ones with the visible suspended tubs like , and I sure remember me touching the glass that was boiling hot, that sure was an AEG's 95 degrees white wash....I remember then me take a whiff out of the caked-in-detergent drawer, like I always did for any front loader I saw. LOL
But I can say, that after that I've never seen a laundromat with machines that would boil or washing with water hotter than warm.

So..over here it's sort of the same...
But it's not the machine's lack/fault...it's who runs the thing.
It's not infact strange to see laundromats habituè people pouring industrial quantity of peroxy bleaches, Vanish and chlorine bleach to the machines to mitigate the absence of real hot water needed and discuss that...forget already when it's a front loader that's supposed to wash in 30 mins or so...
Another downside of modern laundromats:
At least here laundromats with self dosing detergents units are what is common among newer ones, and not much to surprise the ones where people prefer not to go to....

Many reasons...first of all there's detergent preference, second is the same as the hot water matter, so typically the owners tend to set things pointing at profit..so what is supposed to be at least 65-70 degrees hot water fill becomes 45-50, what is supposed to be 1 cup of liquid going in, then becomes half...

But...

That's what happens everywhere..and I'm sure they'd find a way to "arrange" them not to heat this hot even if they were self heating.
If you have a laundromat who feed machines with proper water hotness, kiss the owners and sanctify them!

Luckily most italians would rather own their own units inside their homes, apartment common laundromats are non-existent here, laundromats are rather a thing for tourists or students by.passer etc.
Laundromats though here are busier in winter months, that's because some people chose to launder there as then they can dry all in those big gas dryers, much people don't have space for a dryer in their homes, and if it's electric you might end up spending as much as paying to use the laundromats, hang clothes indoor is an hassle especially since your place is small....in summer, as typical italian, there're pulleys & clothesline from almost every window and balcony.

 

[launderess]

Guess am spoiled for choice

As the laundromats used in France and Germany had washers that self heated.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

But it's very true.

The fact of machines needing to self-heat in europe due to hot water reachability and how things were set.
.
In America central hot water developped much earlier and commonly...there was no need for self heating machines.

 

[foraloysius]

Overhere in the Netherlands washers in laundromats were able to heat up to 95°C too. But Electrolux have some models that only have 4 cycles with the hottest being 60°C. That might be hotfill machines, but I'm not sure about that.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

No...Launderess, dear..that was no my intention to spoil you in any ways.
What you said is very correct, and couldn't have said it better....
But, I said that most laundromats I can seen have machines who will not heat.
Now, what was in the past I don't know much, also because in Europe laundromats generally were not a big thing as in the US....
I just wanted to tell how things are now...
It is very possible, and sure was as you say, that in Europe you had laundromat machines who would self heat, at least, more than in America where for domestic machines since the first wringer washer to the last automatic washer there never was a machine who would heat from cold... and there never was this "option".
But support heaters who would eventually raise temps of few dickers or so.
In the past, only machine with a similar thing that I know, was a
Said this,I apologize if you got this the wrong way...

 

[launderess]

Actually

According to the plates inside the SQ washers at local laundromat they are capable of being fitted with steam for self heating.

While many commercial washing machines still have steam or other means of self heating not all laundromat will offer the option. SQ does IIRC, but not Dexter for instance.

IIRC the main objection to using steam heated laundromat washers here in the States is that self heating washers would take longer to complete a cycle. Time is money to American mat owners and if a machine is slow then there must be more of them to cope with demand/back-up.

The other reason is cost and added layer of complexity in laundromat design and operation. Nearly all fifty states have strict local laws about who can operate steam boilers over a certain PSI. Apartment and other buildings for instance that have steam heat/hot water require someone certified to operate the boilers.

In NYC at least many Laundromats are located in commercial space of residential buildings, can see the inherent danger if a steam boiler went "kaboom".

Laundromat designers here are quick to point out that central water heaters fitted with circulators will deliver water hot as anyone wishes to the machines. If the pipe runs are insulated so the better.

The problem is too many mat owners cheap out by turning the hot water temps down and or not using circulators. Worse there is no spin between the cold pre-wash and the so called "hot" fill of main wash. So whatever "hot" water does reach the machine is diluted when it hits that cold washer and laundry.

 

[launderess]

The boys having some fun...

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Yes...
I understand that...but maybe that would be a good thing in Manhattan as there's the common steam piping from Con Ed and NYC Steam system servicing all the area, but as time is money as you say few would do that...forget in other places than NYC.
And really...nobody likes to wait...hence a reason more why opt for hot fill.
I wonder if customers wouldn't be the first ones complaining for long times?
Over here steam is really not used, not even for condo home heating, what cicrculates in radiators is water... except for very large laundries..then a steam furnace makes no sense..and I really think doesn't in a laundromat,even more a typical european small one.

Most laundromats in this country are in residential buildings too, as gas reaches everywhere and is cheap this is the main source for heating, what you have here is gas boilers in the backroom, there might be machines capable of self heating with gas also, I sure know of some used in laundries but not born for coin laundry and you need anyway to vent a row of say 10 machines, you can't do that easily in a commercial space, same reason why here many laundromats do have condenser dryers, condenser dryers takes longer, and while they require less gas to heat they require water to cool condensers, all laundromats with condenser dryers ask more money to run a cycle than ones with vented dryers...

I think that it all changes also upon the country, but even in countries as France where electricty cost less what I could see in French "laverie" were hot fill machines...perhaps an electric boiler instead of gas?
I think that I really never seen a Miele like that in a Laundromat here or places i traveled, that actually looks more like a typical professional Miele washer adapted to laundromat use, not born to do the coin laundry specifically...they sure do heat..they also use 380 volt commercial voltage IIRC.
After all that's Germany and they will use their machines... another thing I newer saw is coin-box-less 5kg home-style machines in use in laundromats, while I'm seeing you could see some german "waschsalon" with them...
That's typical german I guess...not what comes to mind when I think of coin laundry.

Anyway...lucky us we have a washer, 2 or 3...LOL

But if I ever needed to use a front loader in a laundromat, sure i'd want to get spoiled too and use one like that reaches 90....
Unfortunately...this is not the case for most laundromats i could and can see around.. common are for sure the greed owners and dingy whites.
Well....actually, to be really spoiled I'd want at least a vintage one like Diomede's (vivalavatrice)one....too bad it's almost 2hrs from me.

http://www.illavatricista.it/lavanderia-vintage