Vintage Air Conditioners. The Holy Grail of vintage appliances?

[williepeck]

Emerson quit kool

A 90's Emerson quit kool air conditiner. This was made by fedders. You can tell because it has the general fedders case on the outside With 3 down discharge vents on the back. Sorry about my finger on the top left corner.

 

[yogitunes]

oddly enough.....now is the time to get a new one on clearance....or find vintage ones people are removing for the winter, in hopes of getting a new one next season.....

they seem to be all over on CL, yard sales and flea markets.......kenmores from the 80's always seemed to be quietest to me....

 

[tomturbomatic]

One thing about older ac units was that they produced colder air (probably because of the refrigerant) than the newer ones and were therefore better or at least quicker at dehumidifying.

 

[cuffs054]

Do we have any members who work in HVAC and get pics of old heating/ac stuff? I think that would be interesting.

 

[rstacey1990]

My most prized one so far is the Philco Ford I acquired a few months back. It has the Air Scan feature that automatically moves the vents and sweeps the air back and forth.

 

[rstacey1990]

And, heres what it looks like from the outside! I chose the photo of it without the unit inside of it just because this is the clearest image. I have photos up on flickr of it. this was taken right after I painted the case after the restoration. this thing was in horrible condition when I got it, now it looks new.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Very nice unit and restoration. What are the specs?

 

[toploader55]

Philco A/C

Would that be from the "Noiseless" series ?

None the less, it's a beauty. Great Restoration.

 

[rstacey1990]

Philco Ford Noiseless Air Conditioner

This is an 11,000 BTU Unit, and runs off of 110 Volts. It is indeed part of the Noiseless series, and it is a very smooth and quiet running machine. Its a very very interesting story on how I went about Acquiring the unit. took me years to find one and over a year to get it once I mad a move on one I knew about.

This unit here is a 1971 Model. This is my favorite front grille design of all the Philco Noiseless units. There are many possible front covers. This one also has the Air Scan echanism. really cool feature! The larger sized Noiseless units have the control panel on the left like this one, and smaller ones have it on the right. I believe both styles are 27" long, which is wider than most full sized units, but the lager one is just a little taller. Also, by the outside you can tell because the larger ones have the 3 diffuser vents on the left (if you are looking at it from behind) like the one I posted, and smaller ones have the 3 vents on the right but the vents as well as the condenser are behind a protective screen, unlike the large ones as you can see have exposed condenser coils and vents.

I have a Youtube video made of it showing how it looked when I got it, and tells about the acquisition of it, and I also have one of it when its all done and nice looking again like new. also there is one I made of just the front grille to demonstrate the Air Scan. This particular unit has gained the interest of quite a few people. Its a shame they don't make any thing like this now days.

Here is in acquired condition before I did anything to it:


Here it is all fixed up:


And here is the awesome front grille:


PS: A fellow collector gave me another knob so now its not missing the thermostat knob its 100% complete now!!

I also have many photos up of it on my Flickr photostream, for those who don't like youtube. http://www.flickr.com/photos/66034464@N08/sets/ heres the link to the main photo set page. The Philco Ford section is the third icon, there are several photos of before and after shots of the project as well as other Philco Ford units.

My youtube channel is all units I own, Flickr has photos of all the units I own, but most are ones I find or take myself of units that are not mine. I apologize for all the links but this is a subject I can go on and on about any day haha!

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www.flickr.com

 

[norgeway]

It amuses me!

To hear appliance salesmen tell people how much they will save if they replace their energy wasting appliances...what they dont tell you about are the service calls that the new stuff will need, and they certainly dont tell you you will have to buy a new one in a few years!! An example, in my hometown, a house built in 1950 has the original Waterbury oil furnace, I used to service it, it has the original burner motor and blower motor, it has had a primary control replaced as well as a ignition transformer.....in 63 years, it still runs quietly and cleanly, their is no sign of any smoke or soot in that house, if it was replaced, it would cost around 8000.00 or so to put in a completely new system, ducts and all, and you might get 8 or 10 years out of it before it fell apart, yeah, it probably will cost less to eun a new gas furnace, but you can still buy a lot of oil for 8000.00!Those old window units will outlast this junk on the market today by many years!

 

[toploader55]

Good Lord Russ !!!

What a Beautiful restoration.

The sound of that compressor running sent me back to when I was a teenager in NJ and used to love walking around on a hot day looking and listening to all the different models hanging out of windows or through walls. I especially liked watching how much condensate would be dripping if not pouring out of some of the units.

Quiet Quality.

We had quite the assortment of units in our house.

We had a 15,000 GE in the Living Room, we had a 1 ton Fedders in my parent's room, I had a 5,000 Westy MobileAir that I replaced with a 6500 Airtemp (Pics on this thread) and a 13,000 Fedders upstairs on the second floor.

2 years ago, I bought a 8,000 Friedrich thinking it was made in Texas. NOPE. Made in China. Replaced it through warranty after 1 season, and the second one is full of rattles and vibration noises, the airsweep makes a clicking noise when on, I just threw in the towel and would leave it on the coldest setting while I was at work then shut it off when I got home.

I am renting now and the window can't accomodate the Airtemp but the last time I fired it up 3 years ago, it was blowing Ice Cold Air.

I'll spend a day checking out your Flickr Page soon. Nice to see a Young Man that appreciates the way things were made Long before you were born.

 

[philr]

Nice to see other Flickr contacts and air conditioner fans joining! 

 

So far, I have accumulated a few units. An early-1960s 9,000 BTU Carrier I got about 20 years ago. 



A small 8,000 BTU Frigidaire from 1971



A 1967 7,800 BTU Frigidaire that Martin found for me.



A huge 12,600 BTU 1974 Frigidaire, this thing is so big that I couldn't fit it in my car's trunk when I got it! 



A smaller 15,000 BTU 240V Montgomery Ward Signature that I got with Paul on our way to Boston a few weeks ago. 

 

[rstacey1990]

norgeway: I agree 110%! appliance salesmen drive me nuts. I was in lowes looking for side panels for a 7700 BTU EQK that I have, and gave to my sister to use in her place, and I asked where they kept parts and they started with asking how old the unit is. I said well over 30 years old and right away it was time to talk me into buying a new one. I said the things that old and working flawlessly for a reason. its built well. I said them piece of shit units theyre trying to sell me wont last a fraction of that.

toploader55: thank you so much for your feedback. I really appreciate that. The fact that people actually care about these kind of things is what keeps me going with it. I really started to get serious with it in the last year and a half, although I have been into air conditioners for as long as I can remember. it goes back to the old Large EQK that was in the house when my dad bought it in 1985. unfortunately it was replaced in 1997 with one of the last line of good units. at least it was a decent replacement. the unit that replaced it was a Fedders made Airtemp. This unit is what started it all. it was my mission to get an old EQK and I found one then found another with the 2 drain holes and one vent on the front grille instead of the one I had which had one drain hole and 2 vents on the front grille. I then moved on to trying to find a Fedders with the weather wheel which I found last July in New York, then I was focusing mainly on the Philco Ford which I got this August. now im looking for a Medium Sized Sears Coldspot, and a particular Hotpoint unit. I have photos of both on my Flickr Page.

PhilR: You have a mighty fine pile of Air Conditioners there! they are all favorites on Flickr. Thanks for all the support and feedback you have given me since I started the Flickr page.

Its great to see all the interest in vintage appliances in general. Im hoping to learn a few things about other types of appliances on this site here. There seems to be a lot of very knowledgeable people on here,The girl thinks im nuts! LOL but at least shes cool with it and don't try to stop me from my acquisitions.

I will attach photos of my 2 most wanted units. Hopefully they will show up on CL or become available to me sometime. The Coldspot will probably be easier to acquire. much more common. The Hotpoint should look pretty much exact. the Coldspot may have a different design on the front grille but should have the same set up (control panel on top left and vents next to it) some control panels have push buttons in addition to the knobs, most do not. I am not picky about that. as long as it has that set up. the back should look like the attached picture with 6 vertical rows of vents on the back with one vent on each side. COLDSPOT should be embossed like shown in the attached photo. please let me know if someone finds one of the following units for sale somewhere. I am always on the lookout but sometimes I just miss stuff.

-Russ

Here Is The Hotpoint Air Conditioner:

 

[rstacey1990]

Here is the back of the wanted Hotpoint. this photo is not of the same exact unit as pictured above, but it looks the same on the outside.

 

[rstacey1990]

Coldspot Air Conditioner Inside:

 

[rstacey1990]

Sears Coldspot Inside. same set up just a different designed grille. there are quite a few different designs, but the set up is the same

 

[rstacey1990]

The back of the Sears Coldspot should look like this. depth may be slightly different depending on BTU but the vent set up should be the same as stated before, and it should have COLDSPOT embossed as shown below. I apologize for all them posts in a row, but I couldn't figure out how to post more than one photo to one post. This is the last one for now.

 

[norgeway]

That Coldspot..

Is like one my parents best friends had, it was also the biggest window unit I ever saw, I believe it was 32000 btu, our next door neighbor also had one that was 23ooo, and as far as I know its still running, and it was bought in 1970, both blew out COLD! air.

 

[rstacey1990]

I bet it is still running. Those Coldspot units are no joke! Nice looking machines too. Quality products to say the least.

 

[williepeck]

Interesting location

Hey PhilR that's a quite interesting spot to put the knbs on a air conditioner. I have NEVER seem that in my life. I think that's Linda a good spot for the controls if the unit it being mounted up high if it is being mounted low than your screwed