Innovative Appliances Of The Past

[19&41]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4LOMt5D0H4

It includes the Frigidaire flair range/oven. It's the one my great aunt had. Hers had a steel sliding drawer cabinet under the combo.

[William]

That was pretty cool, Rex, thanks for sharing. I know where there is a Flair range for sale if anyone is interested.

Bill

[electra225]

Mom had one. She liked it. Circa 1962-'63 I think. Really innovative at the time.

[Firedome]

Flairs are still fairly common out there. They had problems related to the slide out burners and parts can be hard to find, two of my appliance collector friends have them. The eye-level ovens were convenient, but Frigidaire didn't come out with Electri-Clean until about 1967 so self cleaning wasn't available, a major minus. Our daily driver is a Harvest Gold 1973 Frigidaire Custom Deluxe which does have Electri-Clean. Far better made than any new range.

One of those friends also has a GE wall refrigerator, part of a NOS (!) 1958 GE Wonder Kitchen that he bought from Dallas and had shipped to Montreal (!). Last I heard it wasn't working, needing a new compressor. He has a GE Mobile-Maid dishwasher or 2 as well, in a 3 car garage stuffed full of appliances! His WK is like this one but all turquoise, installed in his vacation home near the Canada-Vermont border, it's something to see. Note the combo all-in-one washer/dryer in the lower L corner. They are trouble prone but his is working fine.

[William]

That's something, Roger, definitely a blast from the past. What's the thing over by the basket with apples in it. Maybe a freezer?

Bill

[TC Chris]

My parents bought a GE portable dishwasher in 1956. Pink interior, wood-grain Formica top. Eventually it started leaking and become just a countertop. I sealed up the leak (rust hole) and it served a bit longer. Then what to do with such a cool device? Donated it to the local museum.

Chris Campbell

[Motorola minion]

Most of those Frigidaire ranges I saw looked like glass oven doors couldnt be cleaned well enough. I recall an old couple from church had one in a farmhouse kitchen, newest appliance they had and it sure made the kitchen look old in comparison.

My grandma had an uber-cool 1958 built-in Hotpoint Customline refrigerator I just cannot find an image of, but that search term brought up lots of neat modular products. The dishwasher had a big round dial in the lower left IIRC and the door opened up the usual way but it was a like a tub with louvers on the sides when open. Cream yellow was the color of all 4 pieces. Holiday meals were a staple there with random informal meals served on Boontonware melamine plates, keyed to colors of the cooktop burner centers, yellow, red, green and blue. I still have the Hobart mixer, I liberated it from a pull-out stand that lived in a base cabinet but its big and my kitchen is small.

The oven had stainless steel control panel but door was cream yellow like the cooktop that had colored pushbuttons keyed to burners. One C7 lamp in the panel buttons were NOT lit, so it was a step-down model compared to a neat one Firedome has with lucite buttons that are lighted.

In 1985, the DW began to leak due to shrunken gaskets, cooktop and oven were replaced by a standard GE range in Almond to match the DW. The refrigerator lasted until 2000-something as the house was used for the nearby machine shop's office, long after my grandma moved to a home after a stroke in '88.

[Firedome]

Dave, the Flair lift-up doors were not real accessible, and they and the oven cavity itself involve the typically nasty job with oven cleaner, scrubbing, rinsing &c. Yuk. Our Frigidaire Electri-Clean leaves just a bit of ash in the bottom & works perfectly after 52 years. Most don't realize that true (electric) self-clean ovens have much better insulation as well, so are more efficient (better heat retention), like the famous old Chambers stoves: "The Range that Cooks with The Heat Turned OFF!" (and they do too, we gave our son one we had in the "collection".

Bill: the pink unit over the basket, on the R is the 3 door wall fridge, the compressor vent is at the top R of the unit, and the 3 rectangles at the bottom of the doors are stainless steel decorative panels. The 6 pink doors on the L side are steel cupboards and the slanted rectangles below them are sliding glass doors for storage, spices, whatever. The unit under the 3 glass jars I believe was a trash compactor. GE Wonder Kitchens were often installed by builders in upscale houses, they were excellent preforming, saved space, and very decorative. Came in all SORTS OF colors even Black!

The wall oven is at the top R side of the long turquoise unit, the d/w is R of the sink, over the countertop are more sliding door storage, and extreme L bottom is the washer-dryer combo unit. No US maker produces combos any more (which now means Whirlpool and it's Amana, Kitchen Aid, Jenn-Air brands, as the only US-made and US owned appliance maker. The reliability of their brands is good to excellent.

Chinese & Korean brands Haier, LG, Samsung, have shown mediocre to poor reliability. Electrolux (Swedish) owns Frigidaire and has improved to decent reliability in recent years. GE Appliance, though still made in Louisville Appliance Park in K also has decent reliability (for now, well see if the Chinese source more parts from there) but owned by Haier (China) since 2017

BTW the fancy Sub-Zero/Viking/Wolf brands, though US made, have some of the worst repair records in the industry, as do the German brands Bosch, Miele... and forget about getting parts for those 2...avoid!

[19&41]

As I remember the lift up doors had buttons on the top corners that would allow the doors to swing out from the position they hold when just opening the doors. It was the stove I did my first cooking on.

[Firedome]

Some Innovative Features of the Past... on our '57 GE 40" double oven range:

- automatic thermostatically controlled 8" burner with selectable 8" 6" and 4" coils and sliding heat level selector.
- electric lamp color indicators for each of the 5 heat levels for other 3 burners. Earlier models had clear Lucite buttons.
- removable Full-size electric Rotisserie in oven.
- 2 120v outlets on the back panel, one controlled by timer (for coffee pot etc), one "hot". 3rd outlet on the L side for an 2' x 12" plug-in griddle accessory.
- 40"" "floating" control panel (see-thru glass back-splash along bottom) with full width lighting and red illuminated GE logo.
- burners justified to L side to allow for heat-proof workspace on R side (we use this all the time)
- full-size oven on R, smaller oven on L, R side available to be used with timer.
- 2 storage drawers below
- full porcelain cabinet not only on cooktop but all doors & both sides (too expensive now, stainless steel is much cheaper).
- chrome inner door panels, both ovens. Both oven lamps controlled by both door switch or panel switch.
- an actual color! 6 colors were available from GE in 1957. This one is a sunny Canary Yellow (pastel yellow).

Here's a pic of one in Pink, Turquoise, White, Black, and Shaded Coppertone were also available.

Those were the good old days! Most of these features disappeared by the' 70s. One feature lacking is P-7 Electric cleaning, which was introduced in 1964.

[William]

I would take a stove like you pictured, Roger, in a heartbeat if I had the room. The electric range I have now came with the house, which was built in 1998 and still has the original stove, above the stove micro and fridge. The dishwasher was replaced a couple of years ago. The stove is a GE Profile, the micro is a GE, and the fridge is a Maytag.

When I was growing up my aunt and uncle had one of those large metal kitchen sink things. Most people would remember them as having a wide metal base cabinet with usually 4 doors across the bottom and a drawer on each side, the sink was single basin located in the middle with drain boards on each side. Theirs was different in that the sink was set to one side and the other side was a top loading dishwasher. I do not remember the brand, but what I found interesting was the way it sprayed the water around. Once loaded and soap added, you closed the lid and turned a knob to on. You could hear the water running in, and then a bunch of noise like an outboard motor running. The reason for that noise was in the bottom of the dishwasher, directly hooked to the motor was a boat motor impeller and it was throwing water like crazy inside that dishwasher. It had normal cycles like a modern dishwasher, and it even dried the dishes and popped the lid up when done. I'm sure back in the day that was quite the luxury and darn few people had them.

Bill

[TC Chris]

BTW the fancy Sub-Zero/Viking/Wolf brands, though US made, have some of the worst repair records in the industry, as do the German brands Bosch, Miele... and forget about getting parts for those 2...avoid!

My sister has a built-in Subzero fridge. It's probably 35 years old now (more?) and is repairable. Last year an evaporator or condenser (can't remember which) failed and she was able to order up a new one for the refrigeration guy to install.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

Sorry, I got some of my R & Ls backwards in my Wonder Kitchen explanation above, all corrected now.

Bill: good news, that 1957/58 GE range (and '59 to 61 is very similar, we have a '61 at our summer camp) was also available as a 30" version with all the same features & colors but only 1 oven of course... the 30" J304 Spacemaker (pic). Being GE they are still quite findable, this one was FS in Albany recently.

That sink d/w unit you mention could have been a Youngstown, one the the most popular early sink-dishwasher units, they had a round tub, however a central "spin tube" not an impeller in the bottom, my best friend's parents had one. If it was a top loader with impeller it was probably a GE or Hotpoint sink/d/w unit, they made one also.

Chris: Sub-Zero is US made and parts are available and they are certainly easily repairable, but CR has reported poor reliability over time in general, a fact verified by my friend John in MD (in the DC area). John's has been an appliance dealer and repair service with a very demanding clientele for 50+ years and sells Sub-Zero as well as many other brands. He also co-authored with his brother the "Time-Life Book of Appliance Repair" that was published in the '80s. So He know whereof he speaks and it's he who's advised me on actual brand reliability for years. Glad your sister's fridge has been a good one, that's 1 positive anecdotal experience.

[TC Chris]

Chris: Sub-Zero is US made and parts are available and they are certainly easily repairable, but CR has reported poor reliability over time in general, a fact verified by my friend John in MD (in the DC area). John's has been an appliance dealer and repair service with a very demanding clientele for 50+ years and sells Sub-Zero as well as many other brands. He also co-authored with his brother the "Time-Life Book of Appliance Repair" that was published in the '80s. So He know whereof he speaks and it's he who's advised me on actual brand reliability for years. Glad your sister's fridge has been a good one, that's 1 positive anecdotal experience.

I wasn't touting their trouble-free nature (she has had a few repairs along the way) but rather the notion that you can buy parts and you can install them. In short, they are repairable, a notable phenomenon in a culture that's oriented toward throwing things away if they falter or if they reach the 5-year mark and are "old."

Others as old as I am will remember Sears products. When you bought Sears appliance, electronic device, or electric tool, it came with instructions and also a parts diagram and part-number list. You could order up replacements from the Sears warehouse, even years afterward. Some time around 1955 my Dad bought himself a Sears table-model TV for the den so he could watch Omnibus on Sundays. Still have the TV, of course, and the instructions/parts list. I've always wondered how a big company like Sears could be so horribly mismanaged as it was in its last years.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

Pretty much any appliance or tool from 35 yrs ago was repairable and Sears made it easier than most. They used to have one of their major parts depots right here in town when we moved here in 2006, where you could go and get parts in person... greatly missed!

Sears decline has been heavily discussed on the vintage appliance website. Eddie Lampert (aka Lamprey) their CEO who has presided over the decline of Sears Holdings (included K-Mart), was a hedge fund guy. It's alleged that he got into the Sears role in order to get hold of their real estate, as Sears usually owned their own properties. They've sold off many of their stores, supposedly to improve the few still left (ha!). The local one in our mall included the physical store property at one end of the mall plus 2 acres of parking lot and was bought by a local developer. It has since been re-imagined as offices and a big micro-brewery (yay!). Lampert/Lamprey also sold off all of Sears iconic brands: Kenmore, Craftsman, Die-hard, and more, giving one little reason to visit their few remaining stores. All their stores in VT closed and were sold as well. When the history of Sears complete destruction is written, and it will be soon, Lampert will have a lot to answer for.

[electra225]

Sears started divesting themselves or their signature brands far earlier than that. Homart, Allstate, Silvertone were all gone by the middle 1970's. Sears sold cars for several years under the Allstate brand. They had a full line of TBA for all kinds of cars. They even sold tractors and farm machinery under the Allstate and David Bradley brands. Mail order made Sears, mail order, or lack of same, helped kill them. They should have been the king of online sales, instead it was a part of their demise. They discontinued their catalog, a staple for every privy in middle America....Amazon today is Sears of yesterday, as far as sales and customer base is concerned. Sears lost track of their core business. They started being like "everybody else". By the time they realized they couldn't be "everybody else" they had forgotten how to be Sears. Walmart is next. They are so concerned about looking back at Amazon chomping at their heels, they are forgetting how to be Walmart. Grandma bought her first automatic washing machine from Kenmore in 1955. My cousin still has the set, washer and dryer. Grandma didn't use the dryer until she got up in age and walking to the clothes line and packing in the laundry got hard for her. She had an Easy wringer washer she used for grandpa's garage clothes. She thought washing really dirty clothes was hard on an automatic machine. We had an RCA Whirlpool refrigerator that we bought used in 1967. It was probably 10or 15 years old then. It sat in the garage, used every day, until we had our sale in the fall of 2020. We gave $25 for it. It sold for almost $180. I repainted it in the 1980's because the wife had polished the paint off it in spots.

[TC Chris]

I bought a timing light from Sears on Dec. 2, 1972--my first real triggered device and not one of those cheap neon jobs, so I could set the timing in daylight. It cost $21.99 plus $.88 tax. How do I know the details? My sister found the receipt on my Mom's things and handed it to me tonight.

My Dad bought the one-wheel trailer from Sears in about 1950 to move from NC to MI. He also bought a single open-end Craftsman wrench--all he could afford, likely--in the size needed for the mounting nuts. He tied it to the mounts when he got to MI and it's still tied to them.

We'd go to Sears to buy wood screws, paint, clothes from socks & underwear to sport coats, appliances, TVs, spark plugs, tools. Its demise is sad. Another tale of leveraged buy-out and sell-off, with the thieves pocketing the cash.

Chris Campbell

[tasar]

Still think roll around tea carts are the cat's meow... heavy handed "portable" audio !

[walyfd]

And if the stove fails, you can use the exposed output transformers!

[Firedome]

Can you imagine wheeling that pretty hi-end hi-fi into the kitchen? Stravinsky with the Stroganoff anyone? lol
Definitely not Philco electronics: a Jensen Duette speaker, possibly an Eico amp, can't quite see the record player.