Why did GE abandon the filter flo design?

[spinspeed]

I have two old GE filter flo washers from the 70s and 80s, they are great washers and I love the filter flo action. Why did the whole recirculating water thru a filter go out of fashion? I have a Maytag Atlantis and it washes really poorly compared to the older filter flo washers. And it is really noisy compared to the old FF washers. Simon

 

[hydralique]

The Filter-Flo (and companion Hotpoint Rim-Flo) works very well but is known for not being economical with water, although this is true of many older designs. With government standards in the last 20 years it has become difficult for anyone to make a traditional style washer. No doubt there are other reasons the design was abandoned, but water usage is surely one.

 

[whirlcool]

But didn't the Filter Flo machines just recirculate the water through the filter instead of adding new water?

 

[kenmore71]

The water usage issue regarding the Filter-Flo design is that GE never redesigned the outer tub and the balance mechanism when they went from a solid tub to a perforated tub.  With the solid tub the water usage was similar to other solid tub machines of "the day" such as the Speed Queens and the Frigidaires (pre 1-18).  When GE introduced the perforated tub they left it "floating" in the larger outer tub with the same cable suspension system that had been used with the solid tub.  This meant that for a perforated tub that held 12-14 lbs. of dry clothes there would be a fill of upwards of 22 gallons of water.  Contrast that with Frigidaire's 1-18 machine which could genuinely turn over 18 lbs. of clothes with just shy of 20 gallons and the Kenmore & WP large capacity machines that DID use 25 gallons of water but could easily handle 18 lbs of dry clothes.

 

Also, I think that the filter flow fell victim to cost cutting.  To have a recirculating pump and its attendant plumbing and filter costs money.  Why not just eliminate this and leave the filtering up to the dryer???

 

[danemodsandy]

I Thought....

It was because everyone always lost their Filter-Flo pan when they moved.

* ducks and runs *

 

[brucelucenta]

I think it was because in this age of automatic filtering and such, the filter flow washer seemed ancient by today's standards. It was a good selling point back in the 50's though! I know at least one person who bought it for the very reason of controlling lint even though it controlled it no better than most machines.

 

[norgeway]

Ill tell you why..

They found a cheaper way to make a washer that would not last half as long and would need three times the service calls!!!same reason Whirlpool dropped their good belt drive machine and Maytag dropped their old design...a proven design that works does not make sense to big shots concerned with only selling stuff and money!

 

[ozzie908]

Its a shame that its not still in use today

I have a Hotpoint 9404 Twin tub with the filter flo and its the best washing machine ever for washing darks as it removes the dog and cat hairs that blight our clothing. So when its shedding season out it comes to help rid the clothes of hair and dander and as I hang dry in the warmer weather it removes the need to air fluff in the dryer . Thus saving a few pennies.
If anyone could devise such a filter to sit on top of a Servis Twin tub I would have my ideal machine...)

Austin

 

[yogitunes]

well the plastic Profile machines were just cheaper to build, and thats all that matters to a company......

makes you wonder though...many TL machines todays could and still do have a filterflo of sorts....

some of the little portable TLers like Avanti have a filterflo, going thru a stocking screen...

and if they put thought to it, the Calypso with its waterfall could have had a filter pan under the waterfall to filter the recirculating water.....of course what makes the filterflo really function is the moving pan, a stationary screen is not quite the same...

same goes for the Cabrios series, with the powerwash spray, it recirculates water over the load......

the big issue for people in general, they want it there, just out of sight, and so they don't have to clean it!....yet they will clean a dryer filter!....

but in the long run, I think its more for our benefit, the drama, and a gimmick, yes, it does trap lint, but how mny times I hve let it out, and didn't notice a difference...as long as your sorting properly, watertemps and detergent, and cycles....everything comes out fine..

 

[stan]

I always thought

it was because after automatics came out, often times people bought the washer, but still hung things out to dry.
With dryers, the lint gets caught in the lint screen?

 

[launderess]

One Assumes To Many A Housewife

Automatic or even semi was higher up on the list than a dryer, especially during the days when most laundry was going to be ironed anyway. Tumble dryers require some sort of heating source (electric, gas or LP) which not all homes could swing. Well some older one's could if they used the "Green Acres" school of electric appliances.

IMHO yes, tumble dryers do a better job of line removal than many washing machines. I mean you think of currents of air that pass through the washing floating away fluff and what not.

 

[spinspeed]

All very interesting replies. I think cutting cost of manufacture and other options for removing lint lead to the demise of the filter flo. I have two fisher and paykel tl machines with no filtering aside lint getting trapped in the outer tub. They wash really well but not as exciting as the filter flo. My f&p intuative showers hot sudsy water over the load before it fills to agitate. That is pretty cool but no filtration system to speak of.

 

[BlogShag]

I would think it was because most people that saw the lint 'turds' in the filter-flo pan didn't find it too appealing. The Kenmores, etc had a internal hidden filter for years. It wasn't something that consumers wanted to see, but they wanted the feature cause it cleans your clothes better.

However, I really don't know, cause I grew up with Kenmores and Maytags. My parents didn't like the GE models. I don't blame them. Their noises weren't pleasant and their tubs were small, compared to Kenmores,etc, their engineering was quite crude

Also, the filter-flo of the GEs impeded space for loading and observing the laundry

 

[gelaundry4ever]

Let me tell you why!

I believe the reason that GE quit making the filter-flo washers and dryers is that they expect everybody to just let the dryer do the filtering! Years later they expect everybody to spit on their clothes and scrub them with a toothbrush!

 

[dustin92]

No, spitting on clothes would waste water... lightly dab them with a wet wipe, then pound them on rocks for exactly three and a half hours. Then, if there is any trace of moisture left, spin them at 3000 rpms for ten minutes, and dry until crisp.

 

[askolover]

Ah heck....

Just pee on them and recycle....they would smell about as good as some that have been dripped on in the new modern washers that don't use water!

 

[wigwag]

Cost was certainly a factor...

I think it was economics, companies wanted cheaper manufacturing costs, but I also think people were overloading the machines that had long agitation strokes and causing more warrantee issues so whirlpool went to the short-quick agitation and gained cheaper manufacturing costs. Then other manufactures followed suit, and some did a better job at providing a good machine at a good price and some didn't. GE didn't.

 

[yogitunes]

filtering is cause and effect.......

a machine that would do a great job at cleaning, was also rough on textiles, causing the very lint that it was to remove...

machines like FLers don't have filters, then again, they don't use rough agitation of clothing to cause linting issues.....

GE filterflos, as much as we like them, also had downfalls as well....no one machine out there is perfect, some do a better job than others, some are more liked or preferred than others as well.....

but its not like their exactly extinct.....you can still find filterflos for sale, and gain parts to keep them going for a while.....I have several matched sets....in fact recently found a TOL along side of the road, just needing some attention, and he's coming along nicely...

 

[brib68]

Probably a combination of factors

As we all know, cost is king in corporate decisions. But probably changing tastes/requirements/fashions in the consumer base played a part as well.

My mom had GE Filter Flo machines in the 70s and 80s. I think she probably left her last GE pair with the house when they moved across town in the early 90s. I was gone by then, so I don't know for sure if she got her Frigidaire FL pair (older style small cubes) when they moved or some time after. The GE's did require an extra step of fitting the filter in place before starting the machine, but it also served as a detergent dispenser, and also had the softener dispenser fitted on top of the filter pan. As a benefit, it was much easier and nicer to clear out the lint balls from the filter pan than to pull soggy lint from the brush on my grandmother's Whirlpool (not sure if that design lasted past the RCA years).

I would guess that the 'extra step' might have felt burdensome to working moms compared to most machines out there, and that letting the dryer take care of the lint was good enough. By the time of the end of the Filter Flo, dryer usage was probably much more consistent than in previous decades. Busy working women didn't have the time or the schedule to hang the wash out to dry, plus a great many snobby towns and Home Owner Associations outright banned the use of clotheslines.