50 Fun Facts About Washing Machines

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

He argued its impact on the liberation of women outweighed every other invention.

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

He was a clergyman and naturalist from Regensburg.

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

Edward Beetham sold numerous patent washing mills in England in the 1790s.

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

He was from New Hampshire.

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

He worked in Saint John, New Brunswick.

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?

The identity of the first inventor of the electric washer remains unknown.

Alva Fisher is often wrongly credited with inventing which appliance?

The US Patent Office shows at least one earlier patent than his number 966677.

How many electric washing machines were sold in the US in 1928?

By 1940, 60 percent of wired American homes had one.

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

Many machines still used a power wringer rather than a spin dryer.

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?

Most washer-dryers today are front-loading.

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?

The smaller tub is really a spinning drum for centrifugal drying.

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

The larger tub has only an agitator at its bottom.

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

Top-loading vertical-axis machines have dominated the US and Canada instead.

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

It uses a central agitator to move clothes through the water.

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

It spins in one direction, dragging clothes along a toroidal path.

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

Alternatives include water-filled plastic counterweights and rings of loose steel balls.

Which New Zealand company introduced direct-drive brushless motors to washers in 1991?

Its SmartDrive line reached spin speeds up to 1,100 rpm.

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?

Its hexagonal tub uses about a third of the water of a conventional top-loader.

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

A rival's Neptune TL top-loader followed in 2003.

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

Internal electric heaters raise the temperature, up to 95 °C on some models.

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

Many early automatics were coin-operated and lived in apartment basements.

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

Samsung's version has the user photograph the machine's time display.

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

He and his uncle Emory added an electric motor to a hand washer design.

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?

A year later it was sold under the Whirlpool name too.

Which brands did Whirlpool acquire in its 2006 Maytag deal?

Whirlpool closed the Maytag plants and headquarters in Iowa by 2007.

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

It later renamed its address there One Dependability Square.

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

The ads said his predicament was testimony to the durability of Maytag appliances.

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

They were sold under the Meteor brand from Gütersloh.

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?

It began as a maker of universal motors before Axel Wenner-Gren steered it toward vacuum cleaners.

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

In Texas the term washateria is still used by some older speakers.

Where did the first UK launderette open in 1949?

It opened on 9 May 1949.

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

It now holds about 14.3 percent of the global detergent market.

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

BASF's Fewa followed in 1932 as an early synthetic detergent.

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

The tubs held water and alkaline chemicals, sometimes including urine.

Roughly how much less energy can a heat pump dryer use than a conventional electric dryer?

It uses about 1 kWh per load against 3 to 9 kWh for a conventional electric dryer.

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

The motor reversed only to pump water out of the machine.

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

The mechanism was also enclosed in a cabinet for electrical and mechanical safety.

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

Electric machines were being advertised by 1904, and the spread of the washer has been compared to the pill as a force for women's liberation.

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?

At the same Philadelphia exhibition the Shakers won a gold medal for their own washing machine.

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

It also reused and disinfected rinse water, getting by on just 50 litres of water in recycle mode.

What maximum spin speed can front-loading washers reach, according to the article?

Home machines usually run at 1,000-1,400 RPM, while agitator top-loaders do not exceed 1,140 RPM.

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

Some rings instead hold oil and balls on races, like a ball bearing; the Bendix Economat used a squeezing rubber tub rather than spinning.