POD 3/14/12 Norge Dispensomat

[tomturbomatic]

Here was a real case of product tie ins. One Saturday at our Kroger's they had a display set up on the end cap of the detergent aisle facing the meat counter with this control panel of the Dispensomat hooked up to water and electricity. They had Tide, Beads 'o Bleach and maybe Sta-Puf stacked in front of this. It was up high, at least to an 8 year old, but you could watch the water squirt into the two powder departments and see the bins for liquid bleach and softener flip forward to dispense those products. Of course, there was no rinse down; hope the channels were plastic all the way down. I guess with a dilute as Sta-Puf was they did not have to worry about buildup. I wonder what the bleach fumes did to the dispenser lid.

Note, too, the clock for off peak operation: Timed Wash instead of Timed Bake. In that house in Illinois that had oil heat and electric water heating, my parents tried off peak water heating, but then they ran out of hot water by evening if mom did laundry 'cause the waterfall front KM, even with the suds-saver had warm rinses. I remember standing on a step stool and holding the hose from the sink faucet into the washer to add cold water as it filled for rinse to save hot water. I don't remember any middle of the night washing to use hot water as it was being heated though. This clock could have helped, except you would have to wake up to reuse the suds. An early ABO-O-Matic also had a clock.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

It's pretty easy to see this design would entail a lot of service problems...

Unless someone can prove me wrong in that they have one still in model cond. and working to this day...!!!!

-- Dave

 

[tomturbomatic]

Most Norges did not last that long. They washed hard for several years and then suffered some sort of failure that generally caused them to be replaced. They generally died from the base plate up so the dispensomat feature was probabaly not the chief service problem. It was an ambitious approaach to dispensing additives.

 

[mickeyd]

A sweet machine

Jimmy is the only member who has one that I know of. It was a prized sight at his wash-in in Canton 3 summers ago; alas, it was not hooked up for operation.

That Executive Hoptpoint POD we're all so fond of--doesn't that have a dial for hour by hour 1-8 or 12 or overnight soaking? And I think I remember one other machine with a clock, but it's not clicking yet. Anyone remember?

Does John ot Ted have one in their fleets?

 

[mickeyd]

The tub

'

 

[norgeway]

Ted !

Has one I think, I have the big poster ad for it.

 

[washerlover]

Norge!

Beautiful machines, and they still live on! I've got a '65ish machine that's going strong!

 

[arbilab]

Odd they would have reliability problems. Borg Warner is no White Consolidated. They make everything from Ford transmissions to Porsche turbochargers. Their specialty has always been gears, bearings, friction surfaces. Hypothetically, a Norge should be just as competent as a GM Frigidaire.

Did I miss what year this was? I did miss the early tech explosion in washers. At the time I was most likely using GE or SQ coin machines.

 

[hilovane]

My grandmother replaced a 13-year-old Blackstone with a Norge in 1963. It had a backsplash/control panel like the Norge "14," but a rear-opening lid, "burpolator" agitator, and was apparently a towards-the-bottom-of-the-line model; 2-speed, 2-cyc;e, with only a 3-position water temp control. Despite only doing laundry once a week, it only lasted 10 years. She replaced it with Maytag 606 , which was still going strong 21 years later, when she sold her house.

 

[hilovane]

My grandmother replaced a 13-year-old Blackstone with a Norge in 1963. It had a backsplash/control panel like the Norge "14," but a rear-opening lid, "burpolator" agitator, and was apparently a towards-the-bottom-of-the-line model; 2-speed, 2-cycle, with only a 3-position water temp control. Despite only doing laundry once a week, it only lasted 10 years. She replaced it with Maytag 606 , which was still going strong 21 years later, when she sold her house.

 

[norgeway]

Norge Vs Maytag...

My opinion of why Maytags lasted so long is this...Watch a Norge wash then watch a Maytag.......Nuff said, the Norge agitates MUCH faster and handles much heavier loads.

 

[tomturbomatic]

beyond unreliable

It continued to the end with the Norgetags. They probably did more to ruin Maytag's reputation for reliability than any of the other tired out, sorry ass appliances they ever put the Maytag name plate on. Rebadging is not redesigning nor did the Maytag name miraculously improve the reliability of the re-named Norge machines. Every one of the lines that Maytag bought cheap came out of factories that had outlived their useful life. All of the products needed to be redesigned and the factories modernized but Maytag was too cheap to do that. They thought they could just slap the name Maytag on a Norge and pass it off as the much needed large capacity Maytag. The Norgetags had pullies tearing through the baseplates with just a few years of use.