POD 2/17/2016

[brucelucenta]

Interesting looking machines. I have worked on and used these older front loaders in the past. They were adequate for the most part. In a commercial laundry setting, they came in handy for small loads of dark shirts and such. Since the laundry is pressed while damp, you cannot have any unsightly lint or redeposition that would press into the garments. They were quite good about that. Even tumbling in just one direction, they worked fairly well unless you had a larger item or too big of a load, then it rolled up into a ball. They also were so small in capacity, that the drum did not drop the clothes at a far enough distance to really clean very well if something was really dirty. Other than that, they were not bad machines. They extracted a little below average, about like the old belt drive kenmore & whirlpool washers of the same era.

 

[alr2903]

These models made it into lots of swanky condo digs early on.  Also a lot  of mobile homes.  In the stacked configuration.

 

[brucelucenta]

Oh yeah, then along came the Frigidaire "skinny mini". They were quite the pacesetter with that little unit! I remember them being in several apartments where having a washer and dryer was an afterthought. When most of those apartments were built, they didn't think about people wanting their own washer and dryer in the apartment. Times change. Too bad they didn't hold up well under heavy usage.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I have never seen or heard of these washers being in a commercial setting. CU rated them as average in cleaning ability. No FL had larger drums except for the combos and that first Norge FL until the Brobdingnagian tubs appeared in things like the FLs from WP, LG, etc. They washed an 8 lb. load which was the standard before the capacity wars.

With their deeper pool of water and taller baffles, these machines did not depend so much on the long drop, nor, for that matter do the Mieles. Fabrics were pulled through the water and the oval "potato pulley" coupled with the offset pattern of the two tub baffles gave the tumble action an irregular pattern that flipped the items so that the irregular tumble pattern helped reduce tangling. The pump was mounted directly to the tub sump so you did not have the pump out problems resulting in foam locks during spin like many modern FLs have and with the smaller tub diameter, distribution before spin was less of a problem and in these machine when they had the cast iron tub weights, they would spin through just about anything, which is good because they did not have an OOB switch. It is a shame that these machines were not made to heavier standards, but as they advertised in the 60s, you saved enough money on water and detergent with one of them to be able to buy a new machine every 5 years which was just about the life span of one of these when used by a family.

 

[combo52]

Post 1964 Westinghouse FL Washers

These were quite good in performance, good cleaning, excellent sand and lint disposal, better ability for washing large items like coats and blankets than most TL washers of their time period.

 

Of the many of these I have [ and still have ] I have never had a problem with tangling, with the non-slanted tub there was basically no way these could tangle to any signifant degree.

 

I had two Aunts that started out their house keeping days with sets of WH FL laundry appliances, and after they both wore out at last two sets of WH laundry appliances they both graduated [ ? ] to sets of Maytag's in early 70s and I remember well how disappointed both Aunts were with the poor overall performance of the MTs, they did like the quiet operation and fewer problems of the MTs however and they soon forgot the old WHs.