Sears & Roebuck HOMART DISHWASHER

[nasadowsk]

Wow, nice condition!

But...

That automagic pop up drain simply is the COOLEST thing out there. Pretty simple, too - looks like they modified a conventional sink drain and pop-up.

1700 rpm motor And it spins that impeller around.

How well did these old impeller machines clean?

 

[Unimatic1140]

Some better than others, I love my 1950 Westinghouse which is installed in my kitchen as I use it daily. The Westhinghouse cleans perfectly, I have rarely have to wash anything twice. Some of the credit has to go to Cascade with Dawn, its seems to be made for impeller dishwashers and produces results better than any detergent I have ever used in vintage machine.

 

[whirlcool]

I seem to remember that the HOMART name was also used by Sears on outdoor equipment such as hoses and tools, etc. I also seem to remmeber seening HOMART central air conditioning condensers as well. Also the above ground pools that Sears used to sell were under the HOMART name too. These were all in the late 50's and early 60's.

 

[toggleswitch]

SUCH a tiny impeller.
*AHEM* size queen. lol --just kidding--

COOL!

I had never seen the Homart name except in my house which had a SEARS /Homart oil-fired steam boiler. The house was built in 1946, and the neighbors say it was at first coal-heated. So I am not sure of when the Homart heater was installed.

 

[toggleswitch]

Was this possibly a near-sleazy attempt by Sears to capitalize on Hobart's success?

hmmm and I simply saw the name as "home-art." which I'd say is genius!

 

[nasadowsk]

Homart was likely Sear's line of 'home' products, and the appliances were rolled in there prior to Kenmore (?).

Most memorable Homart product has to be those belt driven fans from hell that you STILL see peeking out of attic windows. They must have sold a zillion of them.

(The reverse with timer was the nicest of the 4 offered)

 

[cehalstead]

Homart

Back in the late '50's, we had a Homart window fan and a Homart water heater. IIRC, we never ran out of hot water, and the house stayed cool all summer. The water heater got some heavy usage....laundry for the four of us, and most of the time, laundry for my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. They had a well with not much production and a gray ghost Maytag. Aunt Hazel seemed to always be bringing her wash to run through Mother's '52 Unimatic and matching dryer (of course, not a problem for me...it meant I got to watch even more loads). And that was back in the days of hot wash/warm rinse and warm wash/warm rinse for everything. The only time I remember running out of hot water was the one summer day my cousin and I decided to play in the water outside (we had a hot tap on the side of the house, too) and we used all the water that was meant for laundry....

 

[tomturbomatic]

If you look closely under the impeller, you will see 4 baffles that come from under the mounting flange inside the tank. These kept the water from swirling ahead of the impeller and forced it up onto the impeller as it passed. They are mentioned in the description of the portable and might be the flow modulator mentioned in the paragraphs under the dw/sink model.

Early GE top-loading DWs used to stress putting a plate in each corner of the tank to balance the wash action, but in the Fall of 1950, they introduced a wash action regulator to give uniform washing ation for large and small loads, a power pre rinse before the washing started to flush loose soil down the drain and warm the load and a Calrod heating element in the sump to maintain heat and shorten the drying time to 15 minutes with the impeller serving as a fan to circulate the heated air. The washing and rinsing part of the cycle was 14 minutes long, so cycles were getting longer, up to 29 minutes in the GE.