POD 3-7-14 NORGE Top Loading Automatic Washer

[tomturbomatic]

Interesting that they use the term "undertow" wash action. Bendix used that term for their rubber tub Economat and Dial-a-Mat machines. Maybe the close relationship between Borg Warner and Bendix when Bendix made Norge's first bolt down machine led to Bendix allowing Norge to use the term in advertising copy.

Note at the bottom right that Norge was not yet advertising their dryer as part of their family of products.

 

[gansky1]

These are good cleaning washers, but rather frustrating to watch while agitation. Yes, the noise of the machine is rather unsettling, but the movement of the clothes in the water is quite strange.  They do move around the tub, up from the bottom and back down again but there are times when you think movement is stalled and the load is being dragged back and forth as a solid mass.  But blink or look away briefly and the load has moved position and the fabrics are moving around the tub again.  I do question their claim of gentleness, it wouldn't be my first choice for delicate items.

 

This video is one of the first loads we tested in the Norge:



 

 

 

 

[tomturbomatic]

That agitator was so large for the size of the tub it was almost a case of incomptability based on disproportionate size. "Norge, it gives your load a good rogering," probably would not have been the best advertising slogan, but it sure would have been the truth.

 

[tolivac]

The video brings back distant memories of the Norge my Mom had when I was little.Lots of ACTION there!

 

[appnut]

Lack of dryer in faily of appliances

I too notice this every time this POD comes up.

 

[tomturbomatic]

As for gentleness, Norge marketed an agitator called the Ripplet for blankets and delicates for their single speed machines, possibly for their two speed machines, too. It had almost no fins as I remember and was very slender so it gave more room in the tub and was not beating against the delicate fabrics. When I was 11 or 12, a salesman in the appliance department at Rich's gave me a booklet called Let's Cook Up A Wash from the Home Economics Department at Norge/Borg Warner. It was in this booklet that I saw and read about the Ripplet. It was close to a decade before the hand wash agitators appeared in Westinghouse and Hotpoint top loaders.