POD 6/10/19 Pearl Bailey White-Westinghouse Ad

[ea56]

John my WH FL set was a stacked set in almond, probably very similar to the ones you refurbished on that job. It was in a narrow closet. When it was installed the installer was about 5'7" and 130 lbs. He had to literally hang upside down from on top of the dryer top make the connection for the vent. Anyone that was larger would have been hard pressed to have done this installation.

I guess I must have been lucky to have never had any repair problems. I know at the time Consumer Reports always gave them a low rating for reliability and I could never understand it since our set was trouble free. But we always were careful to follow the insturctions and not abuse it either.
Eddie

 

[norgeway]

I WANT a WH

When they make a new frontloader that dosent stop and reverse every little bit. and make a new one that has as much water in it as a Westinghouse or a Bendix...then I will buy it!

 

[brucelucenta]

Like I said before, "to each his own". Far be it from me to try and convince anyone that these westinghouse machines were not the greatest thing since sliced bread. I just did not have that experience with them. I really just never have liked front load machines much, up until recently. I imagine that using them in a commercial setting would account for some of the problems I had too, along with not checking the pockets of clothing before washing it. When the new style reversing drum machines came out at the end of the 90's I had about three of those. They worked much better for me and were much easier to load and unload, held a bigger load and spun the clothes out dry enough to wet press them. They were also less trouble prone for the first few years. I really cannot imagine ever washing a king size comforter in either one. I don't see how it could possibly move around enough to get clean at all. Even with the huge capacity LG made one I have now it completely fills the drum and has barely enough room to wash well. I can only imagine that it must be much thinner in thickness. I do admit that the old westinghouse machines washed much quicker without all the delays the new ones have now in balancing and such. I would never have been able to wait like that when trying to get stuff done quickly so it could be pressed for customers. Even the reversing ones were much quicker when they first came out. Sorry to have offended anyone. The old ones I had certainly served their purpose and were a help back then, I just never found them to be exceptionally good machines. I also used several Frigidaire 1-18 machines to wash and starch shirts that were wet pressed too. They worked quite well for white shirts. Not so well for dark colors. That was where the westinghouse machines came in.

 

[tomturbomatic]

One other WONDERFUL thing about the 3 belters was that the pump was attached directly to the sump of the tub and it was driven by the main drive motor of the machine. When those babies went into spin, it mattered little how heavy the load was or how much water had to be spun out. It was all sucked away. The pump was so powerful that the drain hoses usually had to be taped to the drain pipe to keep them from jumping out when that surge of water shot out. If over-sudsed, it might take half a minute or so and there was lots of visual drama with water streaming down the window, but that pump was pushing water out of the drain hose. There was none of this sad-ass tripping of flood switches and all action coming to a halt while toy pumps with little motors ran and suds-locked trying to empty the machine. If the motor on the 3 belter stopped, either the cycle was through or it was out on thermal overload. The one minute spray rinse did a lot to kill suds that might have developed that HE washer cannot possibly waste water doing now and that sump had a plate over the strainer that trapped water and sent it out. Only in cases of very heavy or over-sudsed loads did you have water racing around between the basket and outer tub during the start of the spin. Suds could delay the draining, but the machine soldiered on and if you insisted on over-sudsing it, you could expect to burn up belts and possibly a motor, but only in cases of extreme and long-time abuse from terminal stupidity.

I have to say from our two machines, when they went from the cast iron tub weights to the cast cement tub weights, the machines' suspended mechanism lost stability. They could jump high enough at the start of spin to pull the snubbers off the plates and, if the machine was operated after that, you created major problems.

If it were not for CU's prejudice against all front loaders, there would have been a lot more sold. FL owners were repeat customers with almost no complaints. I knew the washers on my paper routes and would ask FL owners how they liked them and they all did. When possible, I always went to the kitchen door to collect so that I had time to scope out the appliances while they wrote the check or got the money.

 

[brucelucenta]

turbomatic

Yes, I do remember now that another problem I had was with them jumping high enough to pull the snubbers off the plates a few times. LOL That was always a pain to take care of too. But like you pointed out, it was with the later ones without the cast iron weights that would happen. I do remember that it was difficult to get things in and out of them because of the small opening and the plastic ring there. I even had the plastic ring come off once and rub streaks on a pair of jeans I had to pay for. I guess I liked, but hated them at the same time.

 

[delaneymeegan]

 

I love the front loaders.  I still don't get what was the big shift to top loaders in the 60s/early 70s.

 

That 25" wide portable Westy must have been a dream come true, at the time. I wonder how they held up.

 

Interesting picture of a basement washer/dryer.  A White paneled washer?  Did Westy make that, or was it painted for the commercial?  I don't ever remember that.

And that plumbing drain .  Ee-GAWD.  No elbow and all that sewer gas coming into the house.  Can't tell you how many times I've seen that.