Vintage machines/ HE additives

[alr2903]

What detergent do you folks use in your vintage  FL machines and your washer/dryer combo's?  Are modern detergents the magic pill,  for the W/D  combos, F/L  westinghouse machines.  We had c 1958 spacemates. I know my mom was limited to Dash, Salvo 1/2  a tablet and snowey bleach for whites. Would the older tumble machines, been give higher ratings had these new products been available?  I think the synthetic detergents greatly improved the performance of  post war T/L automatics as opposed to soap flakes. Your thoughts? alr

 

 

[tomturbomatic]

Consumer Reports said in the 50s and 60s that the controlled suds detergents were not as powerful at cleaning as high sudsers and that was one reason that front loaders did not rate as high in washing performance. The other reason was the size of the drum. When combos came out with their larger drums which gave the load more room to tumble, Consumer Reports noted that their cleaning ability approached that of the highest performing top loaders. Indeed, the first test on the Duomatic rated it, as a washer, just below the highly rated Whirlpool top loader. That said, I never saw dirty or dingy clothes on people who had front loaders. I would imagine that the newer detergents with their enzymes and balance of sudsing and non-sudsing surfactants would clean better than older detergents. Some early liquid detergents had alcohols that attacked "rubber" parts in older machines, but I think that problem was corrected early on.

 

[christfr]

i found a low suds powder from sears that comes in a big ol plastic pail that cleans great, i use it in my westy and the frigidaire 1-18 so it wont suds lock