POD "Super Fast Dryer"

[mrsalvo]

Did anyone really ever have a "super fast dryer?" Don't dryers just dry at a normal time? The picture of the day just struck me odd. When you was a little kid we had an older Norge gas dryer, that thing didn't mess around in drying the clothes, afterwards it was all electric and drying times were all about the same. My mother told me once she didn't care for gas, she said she the clothes had a yellowing to them and didn't smell as fresh, just a thought to ponder on.

Barry

 

[tomturbomatic]

I composed this once and lost it.

This was, indeed a very fast dryer.  Unlike earlier Bendix dryer design, the air came in full width through the back of the drum. It had a high operating temperature, no adjusting of it, and the gas model had a high burner input, I believe. They had complaints about clothes scorching, most likely from people who set it for too long a time and way over dried clothes based on earlier slower driers. I think some were retrofitted to have a lower BTU burner input and a lower operating thermostat, but it was a radical redesign from earlier Bendix dryers even in the ones that were modified at the factory to operate less violently. We had one that was cherry with a shipping block still under the motor.  We were going to keep it that way, l but I think someone wanted it and it left.

 

[launderess]

Methinks "Super Fast"

Was something touted (and likely much needed) early on when many housewives were still using wringer washers. This and or with top loaders that had rather low rpm final spin speeds. This coupled with still often heavy cottons many households still used meant you wanted a dryer with some "oooph" to get loads done quickly.

There are only two main mechanical ways to get water out of laundry; bake it out (ironing, heated drying), or use compression/centrifugal force to extract it out.

Remember reading an old Peanuts comic strip. Lucy reaches into dryer to fetch out Linus's blanket, then hands it to him with same. Poor lad then jumps from contact with that blanket that was still scalding hot.

That it made it into a comic strip of the time tells me many dryers of 1950's or so ran quite hot.

 

[tomturbomatic]

You're right!

Bendix machines had pretty pathetic water extraction so it's nice they were trying to deal with it. Their earlier dryers did not.

 

[launderess]

Hahaha

 

[mrsalvo]

Laundress, LOL. Love Peanuts. That's a good one. Guess some of those super fast dryers" baked the clothes, maybe just put them in the oven?!?!! LOL. That marketing ad just struck me odd.

Barry

 

[ea56]

We moved into a house in 1962 that had a Speed Queen washer and dryer, either 55’or 56’ models. The dryer was electric, and that sucker got so hot that its a wonder the clothes didn’t burst into flames when you opened the door, no joke! You could get a blister from a hot zipper, fresh out of the dryer.

My Mom hated both of these machines! We had left our 55’ Norge Timeline electric dryer and 58” GE FF in the home we had just sold, and neither of these SQ’s were anywhere near as good as far as my Mom was concerned. Within a month of moving to this house we had new a Whirlpool MOL washer and dryer. That dryer lasted until about 72’, and from 63’ till 72’ it sat out on an open porch, exposed to the weather on two sides, and always worked jsut great, and it didn’t fry the clothes!

Eddie[this post was last edited: 10/16/2018-23:11]

 

[mrsalvo]

Eddie, I remember the hot zippers!!! We had a Wards/Norge dryer, early 70's, and that was a good dryer. It was HUGE capacity, but the clothes always came out looking really nice, no wrinkles much that I could remember. We also had a 50's SQ washer, didn't like it at all. It had been fixed beyond its useful life and, Oh, it was the loudest machine I ever knew. I was glad when it finally bit the dust.

Barry

 

[launderess]

IIRC many laundromat dyers back in day ran quite hot as well. Again given the often poor final extraction of washing machines (top and front loading) all that heat was needed to get things dry with fast enough throughput. Otherwise bottle necks were created and or owner had to increase ratio of dryers to washers.

Way around this was to install Bock extractors, but that came with its own issues.

 

[cornutt]

Yeah, I remember the dryers in the Norge Village where I did my laundry in the early '80s. I never set the dryers any hotter than the "medium" setting, which was as hot as the high setting on most dryers. It wasn't unusual to go in there and find a dryer out of order because someone had put it on "high" and set their clothes on fire.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Do any of you remember the signs in the launderettes reading "Customers using the washers have priority for using the dryers"? In January, February and into March in Atlanta, we used to gets rain for days on end and it was cold, too. Many of the houses were built without basements. People would save up a lot of laundry, wash it and take it to the launderette to dry. The lady across the street did that and reported how she hated dryers because they yellowed the clothes. Of course she used Tide, had a Maytag and probably had unrinsed detergent in the clothes, plus she was trying to save money (at 10 cents for 10 minutes for drying) so she used the highest heat. We had a basement (that was not actually heated although the furnace was down there) which would allow my mom to wash a load a day and hang it to dry. We had to ask if we wanted to roller skate inside because she had to check to see if the stuff was dry and could be taken down. It's hard to believe how all of the neighborhood kids rode bikes and roller skated without protective helmets and lived through it.

 

[ea56]

My Mom hung up the laundry in the basement too before we had a dryer. My brother and I used to ride our tricycles down there under the hanging laundry. I don’t remember her ever going to the laundromat. But I used to go to the laundromat to dry my laundry that I’d washed with my Maytag Wringer, when the weather was rainy.

But I don’t recall ever seeing signs giving priority for dryer use to customers that had washed there too. And seems like one 10 cent cycle was never enough to dry a load, and I put it on high to save money. When you are bringing home about $50.00 net a week, you didn’t want to waste it on dryer change when you could be partying. This was 1972 and a draft beer at the local gay bar was 25 cents!

Eddie

 

[tomturbomatic]

In the fall, we brought our redwood picnic table in and daddy put the plywood platform he had made for my brother's electric train on it which we set up in a corner so it did not interfere with the drying laundry. Each spring it was all packed away in a fiber drum and taken up to the attic so that the moisture would not harm it. My sister still has it.

 

[washerboy]

gas and yellowing

Is it true gas dryers yellow clothes? We had a Norge gas dryer for a number of years and never recall my mother complaining about yellow clothes. I don't know anyone now that has a gas dryer except the laundry matt

 

[launderess]

"Is it true gas dryers yellow clothes"

Don't believe it is the source of heat per se (gas), but rather something else entirely.

Textiles laundered with soap, and or not being rinsed well may turn a "yellow" cast due to residues coming in contact with high heat sources. This can be a dryer or even ironing. Same happens if high alkaline pH is used for the wash but laundry is not properly neutralized before being subjected to heat.

In other words source of that old wives tale is what it has been for ages; poor laundry day habits looking to shift blame elsewhere.

IIRC gas dryers are vastly more common than electric, yet you don't see many running around with yellowed laundry.

 

[justjunque]

Gas dryer

We've been using a Whirlpool natural gas dryer since we moved into this house, eight or nine years now, and I haven't noticed any yellowing.

Barry

 

[delturner]

Gas dryers

I come from a family that ALWAYS had gas dryers. The one I have now is gas too. It is an LG and dries quite quickly, but then the washer spins out so well the clothes are practically dry when they come out. I do recall my ma's old Norge dryer that was very quick indeed. You could dry a full load of towels in it within 20-30 minutes. Using gas makes better sense to me since it costs significantly less per load. As far as yellowing, I can't say I have ever seen anything.

 

[launderess]

Was looking at an older Maytag dryer owners manual

Online last night, and even Maytag told consumers that those using wringer washers should expect longer dryer times. Guess even Maytag gas dryers of the period needed more time to cope with that sopping wet laundry.

 

[maytag85]

Maytag GAS Halo Of Heat dryers were probably one of the slower GAS dryers out there, and they were one of the last gas dryers to use a standing pilot, but I just thought of something recently.

What if you were about to put a Kenmore soft heat variable burner in a Maytag GAS HOH dryer, sure it would require some modifications, but it would probably dry faster since the burner would be turned down instead of off.

I don't how well a Kenmore soft heat variable burner would work in a Maytag GAS Halo Of Heat dryer, but that is something that popped in my mind the other day.