50 Fun Facts About Washing Machines

Which Swedish statistician called the washing machine the greatest invention of the Industrial Revolution?

Hans Rosling, in his 2010 TED talk 'The magic washing machine', argued that freeing women from hand-washing outweighed every other invention of the Industrial Revolution.

In which country was Jacob Christian Schäffer's washing machine design published in 1767?

Jacob Christian Schäffer, a Lutheran clergyman and naturalist in Regensburg, Germany, published his washing-machine design there in 1767.

Who received a British patent for a rotating drum washer in 1782?

Henry Sidgier's 1782 British patent described a rotating drum of wooden rods turned by a handle; in the 1790s Edward Beetham sold numerous 'patent washing mills' across England.

Who was granted the first US patent titled Clothes Washing, in 1797?

Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire was granted the patent in 1797, seven years after the first US Patent Act of 1790; no description of his machine survives.

Which Canadian patented a Clothes Washer With Wringer Rolls in 1843?

John E. Turnbull of Saint John, New Brunswick, patented the 'Clothes Washer With Wringer Rolls' in 1843, pairing a washing tub with rollers that squeezed water from the clothes.

Which religious community produced the Improved Washing Machine registered in 1858?

Nicholas Bennett of Mount Lebanon invented the wash mill and assigned the patent to Canterbury Shaker Village.

As early as which year were electric washing machines advertised in newspapers?

Newspaper advertisements for electric washing machines appeared as early as 1904, although the identity of the first inventor of the electric washer is unknown.

Alva Fisher is often wrongly credited with inventing which appliance?

Alva J. Fisher's 1910 US patent 966,677 for the Thor electric washer is often called the first powered washer, but the Patent Office shows at least one earlier electric-washer patent.

In 1874, William Blackstone of Indiana built a hand-cranked washing machine as a gift for whom?

Blackstone built the machine as a birthday present for his wife, then began selling copies for $2.50 each, one of the first home washers made in America.

What share of the 25 million electrically wired US homes had an electric washer by 1940?

By 1940 about 60% of the 25 million wired US homes had an electric washer, up from under a million machines sold a year in the late 1920s.

Which company introduced the first domestic automatic washing machine in 1937?

It was a subsidiary of Avco, which had merely licensed the Bendix name.

Why did the first 1937 automatic washer have to be anchored to the floor?

Without suspension it would otherwise walk across the room.

What did Bendix invent in 1953, sixteen years after its first automatic?

Bendix's 1953 Duomatic was the first washer-dryer combination, washing and then tumble-drying the load in a single front-loading drum.

What did the Hoover Keymatic use to program different wash cycles?

The cartridges had slots and ridges around the edges.

Which cheap brand helped make twin tub machines briefly popular in the UK in the 1960s?

Rolls Razor, run by salesman John Bloom, sold cheap twin tubs door to door in the early 1960s before the company collapsed in 1964.

What is the smaller tub of a twin tub machine actually for?

The smaller tub is a perforated drum for spinning clothes dry: centrifugal force wrings the water out, while the larger tub washes with an agitator at its base.

Which design dominated the UK by the 1970s, when automatics finally took over?

Front-loading drum automatics took over British homes in the 1970s, fitting under a standard kitchen counter and replacing the twin tubs of the 1960s.

Which design has been dominant in the United States and Canada?

Vertical-axis top-loaders with a lid have long dominated the US and Canada; a central agitator turns clothes through the water in a tub that fills completely.

What did Hoover trademark as the Pulsator on its Hoovermatic machines?

The Pulsator was a side-mounted impeller disc that spun in one direction, dragging clothes around a toroidal path instead of the back-and-forth of a central agitator.

What is typically hidden inside a residential front-loader to dampen vibration?

A concrete block of roughly 25 kg is bolted to the tub of most front-loaders to counterweight the spinning drum; some makers use water-filled plastic counterweights instead.

Which company introduced direct-drive brushless motors to washing machines in 1991?

Fisher & Paykel's 1991 SmartDrive top-loader drove the drum directly with an electronically controlled brushless DC motor, dispensing with belts, clutches and gearboxes.

What was unusual about James Dyson's CR01 ContraRotator of 2000?

Samsung's later QuickDrive used a single drum with a counter-rotating impeller instead.

What was the Staber System 2000 of 1994 the only US-made example of?

The Staber System 2000 is a top-loading horizontal-axis washer: its hexagonal drum turns on a horizontal axle yet loads through a lid, using about a third of a conventional top-loader's water.

Which Whirlpool machine of 2001 was the first high-efficiency washer to load from the top?

Whirlpool's 2001 Calypso was the first top-loading high-efficiency washer, replacing the agitator with a nutating 'wash plate' that bounced clothes through a shallow pool of water.

Most modern European front-loaders connect only to which water supply?

Most European front-loaders are cold-fill only, heating water with an internal element; some models reach 90 or 95 °C on a cottons boil wash.

What did early automatic washers connect to the water supply with?

Early automatics drew water through temporary slip-on connectors pushed onto sink taps; permanent plumbed-in hot and cold connections came later.

How does LG's troubleshooting feature send diagnostic data from a washer to a phone?

LG's Smart Diagnosis plays a burst of sound tones that the phone app, or a call-centre system, decodes into fault codes; Samsung's Smart Care has the user photograph the display instead.

What did Whirlpool's founder Louis Upton do for a living before making washers in 1911?

Lou Upton had sold insurance before he and his uncle Emory, a machinist, founded the Upton Machine Company in St. Joseph, Michigan, in 1911 to build motor-driven wringer washers.

Which retailer made the Upton company its sole washer supplier in 1921?

Sears first sold Upton wringer washers under the Allen brand for $54.75.

Under which brand did Sears sell Whirlpool's automatic spinner-type washer of 1947?

Sears sold the 1947 machine under its Kenmore brand; in 1948 the maker began selling it under its own Whirlpool name, which became the corporate name in 1950.

Which brands did Whirlpool acquire in its 2006 Maytag deal?

The roughly $1.7 billion Maytag purchase, completed in March 2006, brought Whirlpool the Jenn-Air and Amana brands along with Magic Chef and Admiral; Maytag's Iowa headquarters and plant were closed by 2007.

In which Iowa town was the Maytag Washing Machine Company founded in 1893?

F. L. Maytag started the company in Newton, Iowa, in 1893 making farm implements; washers followed in 1907, and the Newton headquarters later took the address One Dependability Square.

What was the name of the idle repairman character in Maytag advertisements?

Ol' Lonely, the Maytag repairman played by Jesse White from 1967 and later by Gordon Jump, sat idle because Maytag machines supposedly never broke down.

What were Miele's first products in 1899, alongside a tub washing machine?

Miele's first products in 1899 were a cream separator, a butter churn and a tub washing machine, sold under the Meteor brand; the firm moved from Herzebrock to Gütersloh in 1907.

Which family co-owns Miele alongside the Miele family?

The Miele family holds 51.1 percent and the Zinkann family 48.9 percent.

In which city was Electrolux's predecessor Elektromekaniska founded in 1910?

Elektromekaniska AB was founded in Stockholm in 1910; salesman Axel Wenner-Gren steered it toward vacuum cleaners, and its 1919 merger with Lux AB created Electrolux.

In which city did the first laundromat open on 18 April 1934?

C. A. Tannahill opened the first 'washateria' in Fort Worth, Texas, on 18 April 1934, renting four electric washing machines by the hour.

Where did the first UK launderette open in 1949?

Britain's first launderette opened at 184 Queensway in Bayswater, west London, on 9 May 1949, fifteen years after the first American washateria.

Tide, launched in 1946, was the world's first what?

Procter & Gamble launched Tide in 1946 as the world's first heavy-duty synthetic detergent, pairing synthetic surfactants with phosphate builders to outclean soap flakes in hard water.

Which German company introduced the self-activating cleaner Persil in 1907?

Henkel launched Persil in Düsseldorf in 1907 as the first 'self-activating' detergent: its sodium perborate released oxygen bleach in hot water, ending the need to bleach laundry on the lawn.

What were the ancient Roman workers who cleaned cloth by trampling it in tubs called?

Roman fullones, or fullers, trod cloth in tubs of water and alkaline agents, including stale urine collected in street jars; their workshops were called fullonicae.

What does a washing machine's pressure switch, or pressostat, sense?

The pressure switch reads air trapped in a hose running down to the tub: rising water compresses the air, and at the set water level in the tub the switch closes the fill valve.

Which manufacturer's Filter-Flo washers were a very popular top-loading design?

General Electric's Filter-Flo top-loaders, sold from the 1950s into the 1990s, recirculated wash water through a lint-filter pan atop the agitator; the motor reversed only to pump water out.

What replaced dangerous power wringers on washing machines in the 1930s?

Built-in spin dryers, which flung water out by spinning the tub, replaced the exposed power wringers that had crushed fingers; makers also enclosed the mechanism in a cabinet for safety.

In what year was the first English patent in the category of washing machines issued?

The first English patent classed under washing machines was issued in 1691, three-quarters of a century before Schäffer's 1767 German design.

Why does no description survive of Nathaniel Briggs's 1797 'Clothes Washing' invention?

A later patent was issued to Amos Larcom of Watervliet, New York, in 1829, so the Shakers are also credited with the invention.

Who improved the Triumph Rotary Washer shown at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition?

Margaret Colvin patented improvements to the Triumph Rotary Washer, exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, where the Shakers' washing machine took a gold medal.

Which company introduced a drum washer with an ozone 'Air Wash' disinfecting function in 2006?

Sanyo's 2006 drum washer used ozone to deodorise and disinfect clothes without water in its 'Air Wash' mode, and recycled ozone-treated rinse water to get by on about 50 litres per wash.

What name did Maytag give its 1922 washer with a finned agitator at the tub's base?

Maytag's 1922 Gyrafoam, designed by Howard Snyder, set a finned aluminium agitator at the bottom of a cast-aluminium tub, forcing water through the clothes rather than dragging clothes through water.

What liquid typically fills the balance rings that steady a washer's drum during spinning?

Liquid balance rings hold calcium chloride salt water, a dense brine that flows opposite an off-centre load as the drum spins; other designs use steel balls running in oil.