POD 5-19-15 WP's First Combo

[tomturbomatic]

Note the lack of the separate rinse temperature switch.

The WP-made 33" wide combos had a sump that held 3 gallons of water to power the filter stream so, after the load was saturated, it only used 3 gallons of water for the wash. Since the water was not very well extracted, each rinse only used a little over 3 gallons of water. My friend's mother who had one of these used one little yellow cap of Wisk from the metal can to wash a full load. It did not over suds and I think the liquid detergent left the fabrics softer. Original Wisk had phosphates.

Today, many FL machines use even less water after the load is saturated and extract better between water changes. The big SQ FL uses about 3 gallons of water over what is required to saturate the load unless the water level is increased.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

"Hey Buddy, you better make sure that ALL these washers WORK!!!!" (Ooops, that was YESTERDAY'S--Maytag...)

 

A pretty machine, Whirlpool should have stuck to combos if they were made as well as their famous TL's...

 

 

-- Dave

 

[tomturbomatic]

Long story short: they weren't because of patents held by AVCO.

 

[appnut]

heater used in rinses??

I wasn't aware of this, but the LK next door, I thought I was crazy (or because I'd gotten there in mid cycle), I could have sworn I heard the gas swoosh on during rinse once. 

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Shouldn't be too surprising for whatever gas, or even electric properties for the clothes drying to be utilized for water heating in the machine...

 

Enough that the technology could have even have been developed back then, if not now when the time WOULD BE right to bring back Combos!!!!

 

And Whirlpool would surely be a good place for it to happen...

 

 

-- Dave

 

[tomturbomatic]

I think it was established a year or so ago that this model did heat during at least some portion of the rinsing, but the insanity is, how do you heat a one minute rinse? And why?

The rinses on this machine were very brief; one minute and as soon as the diverter valve snapped from recirculate to drain, the little wind up motor began pulling the variable sheave pulley up and the drum went into spin. The pump sucked the sump dry and before you knew it, the spin was over and it was filling again. After the last rinse, there was the one minute spin drain, a one minute pause, then one minute of tumble then the final spin.

 

[appnut]

It's a shame one of the rinses wasn't a thermostatic hold warm rinse.

 

[tomturbomatic]

But, if you had the machine set for warm rinses and did not have warm water after two rinse fills before the 3rd rinse, you had serious hot water supply problems whether it was the distance from the water heater or a totally inadequate hot water supply. If your water pipes to the combo were exposed to that much cold air that the hot water lost all of its heat in the run to the combo, they probably froze at least once during the winter, too.