Questions about Kenmore High-Speed Dryers

[powerfin64]

I have a question about one of my dryers. In my collection, I have a '64 Kenmore Model 70 HIGH SPEED and a '65 Kenmore Lady K Senor Dry Dryer.
Both have: OLD style grated back drum(think of a GE Dryer style drum), 6000 watt element, and exhaust fan, and drum light.
'64 model 70 has infinite heat selection(Air, Delicate, warm, Medium, Wash 'n wear, High) but is not a soft heat model.
'65 Lady K Sensor Dry is a Soft heat model, 2 heat settings, (Air and Heat), but is not labeled High Speed, even thou it has the same fan as my Model 70.
So, my questions are: 1. What qualifys as a High Speed dryer? Is it the Fan, or 6000 watt element Or Both?? 2. Is my Lady K Sensor Dry dryer, a High Speed model even though its NOT labeled as one?
Just curious to find out what everone thinks.

Rich

 

[mayken4now]

Rich, I would like to know that as well.

My guess is the element. Too much air will push the heat out too quick.

Steve

 

[jamiel]

Add to that, is the only difference on the gas high speed dryers the high-input "infinite" burner which keeps the temperature in the drum higher longer until it moves to cool-down? Someone said that the high-speed burner would keep a constant 160 degrees in the drum where the non-high-speed would cycle from 160-125-160-125. Why did they kill off the high-speed?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Kenmore electric high speed dryers in the 1950s could be connected to a 50 amp circuit breaker and a wire moved on the heater terminals so that the wattage was increased to over 8000 watts. The early 50s electric dryers with the controls on the front had a fan in front of the heater, pushing air over the heater and the regular fan pulling the air out of the dryer. There was also a period when the drum was wrapped in heavy insulation held in place with big metal straps. In one of the Consumer Reports ratings of dryers, the Kenmore dryer had a timer that only went to 60 minutes and that was often not enough to dry a load of laundry on the 30 amp operation so the dryer was rated acceptable only if it was installed on a 50 amp circuit. There were 37,000 BTU gas burners, both cycling and modulating valve soft heat style. Unlike the perforated drum back of a GE dryer where the heat enters, the WP perforated back drums had the heated air entering from the upper left and exiting from the lower right. This allowed some of the heated air to bypass the clothes in the drum. When we rebuilt these, John would glue strips of felt to the solid metal behind the back of the drum so that the air almost had to enter the drum before exiting the dryer. When the more efficient solid bulkhead dryers were introduced about 1965-66, they eliminated the need for so much extra heat input. Whirlpool's 2 speed gas dryer offered 30,000 BTUs of heat with the full air flow on the High Speed. The Gentle Speed reduced the burner input to 20,000 BTUs and partially closed a damper in the exhaust duct below the lint screen. Very light weight fabrics were less likely to be sucked against the air outlet in the back of the drum. Another plus to the gentle setting in the dryer drums with two bumps and the large black variator baffle was that the Gentle setting kept sheets from tangling. I have a dryer with the round glass window and noticed that when sheets tumbled past the exhaust grille, the strong suction held some of the fabric there for a little longer than it took the rest of the fabric to tumble out of that region of the drum. With certain sheets this led to them rolling up while drying. I tried the Gentle setting and they did not roll up. I guess the same effect could be achieved by drying sheets when the lint filter was really ready for a cleaning and that might reduce the air flow enough to give a similar result.

The electric Soft Heat dryers used 2 heating elements to give the effect of the modulating flame burner. Initially both elements were energized. When the operating thermostat was satisfied the larger element was cycled off while the smaller element of about 1500 watts remained on. The temperature fell, but not as fast and not a low as it would with the heat completely off. When the operating thermostat called for more heat, the bigger element cycled on again then gradually spent more time off than on. The result was that the low wattage element was always on and at the end of the dry cycle, the low wattage element alone was heating the dryer so the dry load was receiving gentle heat input just before the dryer went into cool down. Like the gas soft heat, the electric soft heat dryer was faster than an electric dryer with the same heating wattage where a single element cycled on and off. The gas soft heat dryer had a modulating valve that reduced the flame size so that by the time the load was dry, the flame was just a little larger than a dryer pilot light.

 

[powerfin64]

Interesting Information..

Good question Jamie. I'm thinking a reason they killed off the "high-speed" models was to bring in more efficient models.(The High-Speed design has its flaws)
I didn't know about the 2 heating elements in them, but that really makes more sense about the soft heat proceedure.

My question still remains about my Lady K.. High Speed or not? Or was High Speed not a option for the Lady K models?

Rich

 

[jamiel]

Curious about the flaws. I've got a 1959 (as I recall) Consumer Reports buying guide which talks about a 28 minute cycle for the Kenmore and the Philco which seems just blazing fast.

I'm trying to remember-we had about a 1965 white electric lower-end Kenmore dryer (5 heats, 3 timed cycles (normal w/5 min cooldown, w&w with 10 min cooldown, delicate with 5 min cooldown). Seems to me that the fins were formed into the metal (I got to stick the Free & Soft on the fin). Neighbor had a 1963 Soft Heat gas coppertone which matched her washer (70 series as I recall) (and also matched my mom's) with only two cycles (timed and air)...she had the air freshener bottle on it and the sprinkler ball.

My grandmother had about a 1968 RCA Whirlpool gas(must have been about the last gasp of RCA) with the full width door, full width slanted console, plastic timer dial (with Tumble Press on it...that always fascinated me). It had electronic ignition that went out about every 18 months my grandfather had to sand the contacts until finally there wasn't much electrode left, then he bought a service contract and let them fix it. He thought it was a flawed design and didn't have any scruples about letting them buy the igniter unit

 

[spinout]

I don't believe that the high-speed dryers were flawed. CU reported on them favorably and I've been using a '63 for more than ten years with good results and no difficulty. In fact, I prefer it over a dryer that would otherwise tumble my clothes to death--the high speed cuts the drying/tumble time in half. (I can dry the heaviest towel load in about 30 minutes.)

Any so-called efficiency differences are minimal, if not negligible. I do know that there were safety concerns about users that didn't have adequate venting and/or poor maintenance practices. Ultimately, the industry standard 5kw or 22k btuh heat inputs were adopted for "saftey" reasons.

To eliminate any confusion, high-speed and soft heat are not one and the same thing. Soft heat was intended to be a modulated heat as described above, and was used on many different WP & KM dryers, including high-speed models, through the early seventies. It is an excellent system. The likely reason it [soft heat] went away is cost and the trend toward giving the user more controls, whether needed or not.

 

[powerfin64]

Nature of the Beast..

I will agree to a extent, the high speed models are very good but, there is one feature on them that does create a small problem. That is the lint filter system. Lint is to be pulled through the back of the rotating perforated part of the drum, into the fan to be blown up in to lint filter. Over time, lint that didn't make it to the fan,(keep in mind there is a small gap BETWEEN the back of the perforated drum AND the bulkhead where the heater and exhaust fan is) ends up at the bottom underneath of the machine, covering the motor and base plate. I have taken apart 2 high speed dryers(1 Kenmore and 1 Whirlpool) that had come in at a buddys appliance shop, that had accumilated lint all over the baseplate and motor.(I kept the Kenmore, which is the '65 Lady K meantioned above) My '64 Kenmore Model 70 will run for about 20 minutes, before the motor overheats and shuts off, due to lint accumilation on the motor(just needs to be vacuumed out)
Other than that, I have no complaints.

Rich

 

[neptunebob]

Were Kenmore dryers faster than a "Halo of Heat"? It seems to me that most dryers today have the back of the drum stationary, would that not be hard on clothes (especially polyester of the 70s)? I notice that Frigidaire and White Westinghouse dryers have the back of the cylinder that moves but those dryers seem incredibly hot. They don't use 50 amps, do they?

 

[panthera]

quality determines

I don't think it really matters as long as the drum is properly assembled. The cost of bolting together a thin strip of metal with a few pieces of plastic to lift and separate then squeezing it between a solid disk and the machine front is much less than producing a proper drum.
You also have the question of bearings to deal with. The thin, light drum rests its weight on the seals at the front and back (yes, there are usually plastic gliders at the points of contact). The solid drums need a center bearing, making the machine deeper and requiring a much more stable structure.
But, done right, both can run for many decades.
Synthetic fabrics in the early days were even more sensitive to thermal shock and snagging than today. Careful placement of the heating elements, blower and drum rotation (reversal every few rotations for instance) together with sensible heat management and moisture controlled drying are more important than the construction of the drum. Obviously, it is easier to design for synthetics and then accept a longer drying time for cottons than it is to use the high-speed designs of the 1960's.
Kinda sad, really.
Of course, now that more and more US machines are beginning to actually spin dry clothes (400rpm is a sick joke) I imagine subjective dryer performance is improving considerably.

 

[neptunebob]

I kind of wondered if the Maytag was as faster as the Kenmore hi speed dryer because I heard people here refer to it as the "Halo from Hell" so it must have been pretty hot. Would it be as hot as a Frigidaire or WW dryer of today. I had a GE dryer that was WW and it was hot as the devil and made the meter whizz by.

 

[powerfin64]

I think..

they're about the same as far as drying speed goes, but, I will say my '64 kenmore model 70 is pretty HOT!(Keep in mind, these have a 6000 watt electric element in them, compared to the 5400(?) watt elements in todays macines.It makes a BIG differace!) I had a 60's Maytag Highlander dryer, and it too was a HOT beast.

Rich

 

[danemodsandy]

Halo from Hell

The phrase refers to the difficulty of servicing one as compared to most dryers, not to the heat level, LOL.

 

[spinout]

If anything, the halo of heat dryers are known for being slow. It was not Maytag's best design for several reasons--including performance, which was generally poor.

 

[Unimatic1140]

I absolutely love my 1957 LK High Speed Dryer. I do have it connected to a 50AMP line (8600 watt element) and sheets can be dried out of a Unimatic in less than 5 minutes. The wonderful thing about this dryer is it has a infinite heat setting from Low-Warm-Med-High. Just because its 50AMPs don't assume its a very hot dryer because it is not. What the 50AMP circuit does is gets the dryer up to it's operating temperature very fast and can hold it there easier than a 30AMP dryer. Most things can be dried anywhere from Low to Warm in less than 30 minutes. This dryer and the Frigidaire Filtrator are my two favorites.

 

[gansky1]

Beautiful set - that is one fast dryer and with the (optional/extra) room heater - hair dryer, it can take the chill off the basement very quickly too.

Time to clean the lint filter ;-)

 

[neptunebob]

I thought Norge had the hair dryer. I think women who were "kitchen beauticians" and had a beauty salon set up in the basement would be the people Norge wanted to sell dryers to. But could Sears have had a hair dryer too?

 

[powerfin64]

I too use Low(Delicate)and warm on my '64 High Speed model 70 Kenmore dryer. Most items are dried in 15-45 minutes, depending on whats being dried and heat setting. I personally don't use anything higher than the "warm" setting on the '64 model 70.(I think of it as a High Setting and "Delicate" as Low.)
With 6000 watt element, things get dried faster. I can't imagine 8600 watts to dry clothes with!
count to 30, and there done?

Rich