I have a few answers:
Someone just posted a comment on my You tube page under my video of Roberts ’58 WP combo. They referenced a European combo and said: “A friend in England has one, and if its performance was like most, there's a reason they failed in the US market. It took half the day and left the clothes still a little damp.”
So my questions are….
Who (and when) was the first to sell a successful W&D combo, Bendix?
>Yes, they introduced the first Duomatic in December, 1952.
When were the last US built combos built & sold?
>John knows exactly. It was early mid 70s. GE and Kenmore discontinued them about the same time. Philco stopped in 1969.
What was it that caused their demise?
High purchase price?
Poor cleaning/drying performance?
Mechanical complexity/failure/repair rate?
>They only cost about as much as a top of the line washer and less than a separate TOL washer & dryer. Most washed better than regular front load washers because of the bigger drum. With the exception of the Duomatic, they did not extract as well as a separate washer so most, with the exception of the original Duomatic and a few TOL 27" Duomatics, were slower at drying. Many were mechanically very complex and often suffered because there were not the proper materials to do what needed to be done in the machines, like the gasket in Greg's Wash 'n Dry Laundromat where the gasket around the damper from the heater box was destroyed by the heat. He was able to replace it with a modern material more suited to the task. The gas WP 33" machines suffered tank failure where the burner was next to the side of the porcelain tank or outer tub. The intense heat eventually broke down the porcelain leading to rusting out. Many functions that could be done with electronics today were done with mechanical components back then because that was all they had. Again, Bendix had tied up the patent rights. For the most part performance suffered because non-Bendix machines could not be built to perform as well as Bendix machines. Most manufacturers lost money on them. Very few people bought more than one. The Wesinghouse 27" stacked pair presented a better performing alternative in tight spaces. The year with the highest number of combos sold was 1958 and every year after that the figure was lower.
How long does a Duomatic, Whirlpool/Kenmore, GE or other US built combo take to wash & dry an average load?
>The original Duomatic took about 35 minutes for the wash portion of the program with the full 9 minute wash. The dry took about 40-45 minutes for a full load.
There were several different WP-built machines: the early 33" one and the later 29" one. There were some revisions to the 29" combo which affected drying times, but again, with the 10 minute wash, the wash portion took about 35 minutes in the 29" combo. The dry was auto termination on most all of the 29" WP machines although I have seen a picture of a 29" WP that had two separate dials for the wash and dry cycles and I can't remember if there was a timed dry selection. The gas models were generally faster than the electric-drying models. Most cotton loads dried in about an hour or less in the 29" machines. The GEs were slower at drying because the clothes were not extracted as well and it used a condenser system which was very dependent on the temperature of the cold water for efficiency. The full size American combos used dryer heaters comparable to full sized dryers with the electric models running on 30 amp 230 volt circuits and the gas models having BTU inputs to match gas dryers. Condenser models could use slightly lower wattage dry heaters. The TOL Sears models featured 37,000 BTU burners with a modulating valve, comparable to their TOL dryer and less deluxe models and those of other brands had lower inputs mostly in the 20,000 BTU range
For that matter, how long does any European or Asian “Combo” take to wash & dry an average load?
What is an “average load” for a US build combo vs. the “average load” for a Euro/Asian build combo (in lbs / kilos)?
>For most US combos, the load was realistically in the 6 to 8 pound range depending on the weight of the fabric.
