spin-driers became twintubs?

[dryclean1]

as much as I like the name twintub for the breed of machines made by so many companies in an effort too lessen the dry time of the washday. I have never seen any of the twintubs reffered to in their ads as anything but spindriers. and hoover went by the spin-drying washer. the easy machines especially seemed to really advertise the spin-rinse feature of their spindrier machines. I just bought an easy machine and I must admit it is so much fun too use. the spigots and the cone in the spinner is really a neat concept. thanks Bill

 

[launderess]

Really only less than ten or even five

Washing machine makers used "spin dry" or "spindrier" (the latter was copyrighted by Easy) and or made such twin tubs. Nor did any company IIRC sell stand alone domestic extractors in the USA like in Europe. http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/98/445/1899682/

Twin tubs with spin driers never really caught on in the USA with wringer washers then semi or later fully automatic machines dominating. In fact once washers came out that could spin automatically in same basket it pretty much limited the market for twin-tubs.

You can do laundry two ways: shift clothing or shift water. Use of conventional washers and twin tubs is the former; semi automatics, fully automatics are the latter.

Spinning is easier to recall and market than centrifugal force in a name although some twin tubs used the latter in their detailed advertising literature. People especially housewives back then could relate to spinning I suppose.

The initial allure of spin drying was to do away with the hated (and often dangerous) wringers. It is also a faster process because batches of clothing can be processed at once instead of being fed into wringer one by one.

 

[e2l-arry]

There was also a cost factor.

EASY Spindriers also cost more than a conventional wringer. But also on top of eliminating the aforementioned wringer, you also didn't need the big laundry tubs used for rinsing since that was done in the spin side. A big plus for households without a basement.

My Grandmother had such a house. She had a big double tub kitchen sink, somewhat typical of a farmhouse kitchen in those days and she washed with a conventional Speed Queen. Hers didn't even have a pump so she emptied the washer into buckets and dumped them down the sink drain out right out the kitchen window!

I remember thinking how an EASY would have eliminated the draining part as well as not really needing the big double tub sink in the kitchen.

But the EASY washer did take up more space. When not in use, Grandma rolled the Speed Queen into it's "home" between the stove and the refrigerator near the kitchen sink. An EASY would have never fit in that space and would have had to be rolled to the other side of the kitchen. And it was a big kitchen. I once asked my Mom why didn't Grandma get one of those spindriers washers and Mom said she didn't like that you had to pull the wet heavy clothes out of one side to move them to the other. I pointed out the you had to pull the wet heavy clothes out of the Speed Queen but her reply was "Yes, but only a few pieces at a time and as soon as the wringer caught the clothes, it pulled them the rest of the way".

I remember a friend in grade school who's Mom has an EASY she used when her automatic was on the fritz. Repairs were expensive so her automatic could be down for months and the EASY sure beat going to the Laundromt. It was such a cool machine. Especially the spin rinse feature. I'd pick up one in a second to place along my Maytag E2LP in my basement but they're a rare find.

 

[cornutt]

I don't think twin tubs ever caught on much in the U.S., at least not in the South. I don't recall ever seeing anyone who had one, or seeing one in a store. My great-aunt did her laundry, with her Maytag wringer, on the back porch. There wasn't any water supply (all the water was hauled from the kitchen), so a spinner would not have been useful there.

 

[launderess]

TT Semi-Automatic Washers

Despite Consumer Reports and others praising them to high heaven only ever occupied a niche market here in the USA. Even then that was mainly before WWII and a bit after until fully automatic washing machines came along.

As the design, quality and so forth of fully automatic washing machines improved housewives (and any one else) abandoned conventional washing machines and went straight to automatics.

Post WWII between the boom in new construction and or remodeling, more and more American homes got full indoor plumbing including almost unlimited supplies of hot water. Once you take water savings off the table it kills a market for both wringers and twin-tub washers. To further push that knife deeper automatic washer makers came out with suds-saving models. This removed any last objections from the few Average American Housewives who needed or wanted to conserve hot water.

We know of course conventional and twin tub units sold well into the 1970's and beyond, but again they were never more than a niche product.

 

[launderess]

Consider also

Twin tub washers with spin driers were expensive. Far more so than conventional (wringer) units. Times being what they were many housewives were happy for any sort of machine on laundry day that lessened work load.

When times improved housewives went straight for automatics. Well they would, wouldn't they? No more handling wet laundry be it feeding into wringer or spin basket. When you consider there were automatic washing machines then that spun as fast or even faster than many of the spin driers, there was little reason (aside from water savings), to go with a twin tub.

 

[countryguy]

The main reasons for twin tubs was to save space when a full size washer/dryer was not practical or for apartment dwellers where laundry hookups were not available.

 

[launderess]

Space savings?

Well with the Hoover and other European or Asian derived versions, yes fully agree.

OTOH IMHO the Easy Spin-drier seems a rather hefty piece of equipment. Ditto for early GE and other twin tubs including the Dexter version with a mangle.

 

[countryguy]

Growing up, the only twin tubs I ever saw advertised on TV or in magazines was the Hoover and Maytag. I know of only 2 families that had a twintub. One was a family that had a Hoover at their cottage...they kept it in the change room of the sauna which was a separate building. There was no running hot water so they would fire up the sauna (wood fire box) the night before and the attached water tank would still have warm water in it the next day for doing the laundry. The little old lady that lived next door year round had a Maytag A50 which she kept in the kitchen. She did not have a dryer due to lack of space, not lack of money. She was rolling in dough as her dead husband had been the one and only pharmacist in town. She had a beautiful home on the lake and always drove a GM convertible, never with the top down however LOL. She traded cars every 2-3 years and barely drove 5,000 miles a year, if even that. Once GM convertibles were no longer made, she went with the luxury Buicks....a Riviera being her last car before she died.

Gary

 

[launderess]

In the end what was left of twin tub units were mainly marketed to those living in space challenged situations. Hoover, Maytag and others then and still today seem to market their units to apartment dwellers or anyone else that needs laundry appliances but cannot swing a full sized.

 

[arbilab]

some may know

I bought a new twinny 3 years ago, $250 delivered from China via NY. Retired in a government hovel, not like I have much to do other than eat and watch cable. I value the control a twinny gives. The only options on the coin-ops downstairs is running another cycle if the result displeases. And gawd knows what was washed in them before I got there.

Yes the impeller knots sheets and towels, even though it reverses every few seconds. The spinner works so well, everything dries in the coin-op for one quarter (20min)(subsidized).

The other issue solved is the necessity that the washer stay literally and figuratively 'in the closet'. Not only is space scarce but private laundry machines are forbidden. The twinny can sit unnoticed in the closet during mandatory inspections, concealed only by a decorative cloth. It just looks like another box (I have many sitting out, see 'space'). Not the giveaway profile of even the smallest automatic. Oh, and the reviews on small-footprint automatics didn't inspire much confidence.

Little learning curve; I learned laundry on grandma's Easy longabout 1953. Some things you never forget.

 

[launderess]

Nosing around the Internet

Easy seems always to have called their units "spin driers" and or made reference to damp drying or spin drying. In fact many early spin/extractors machines sold for domestic use made those or references to centrifuge drying.

Now Dexter did call their twin tub wringer machine just that.

Am thinking early "twin tub" washer makers wanted to get away from associating their products with wringer machines. Wringer washing most always involves using two or more separate tubs besides the main unit.