Thread Number: 27489
BD Laundromat |
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Post# 422036 , Reply# 4   3/11/2010 at 13:22 (5,156 days old) by kenmoreguy64 (Charlotte, NC)   |   | |
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My grandmother and great-Aunt lived in two separate but identical 8-story condo buildings in Dunedin Beach Florida. Each had a laundry room on the 2nd floor that had 8 early to mid-70s era Whirlpool belt-drives in Avocado, three Huebsch dryers, and one standard Whirlool dryer.
My Grandmother's building was a year or two older than my Aunt's, and the older machines were mostly metal tub-ring era machines with white Super Surgilators and chrome agitator caps. There was one later machine with the plastic tub ring. My aunt's building had all plastic tub ring machines which have white caps. I could go in there and run about 4 loads at once (my grandmother was none too happy to have me do the laundry). I'd take a wad of quarters, a bottle of Wisk, and a little wheely cart stuffed with laundry and just have a blast. I'd load up all the washers I needed, then instead of starting each one as I finished, I'd wait and try to slide two of the coin chutes simultaneously. The machines seldom ran in perfect unison though because invariably one would fill a bit higher than the next, or one had a timer that ran longer or shorter by a half-minute, etc. and the machines would wind up not running in parallel. It was very cool though to have all the lids open and stand back far enough to watch all the chrome caps turning at once. As far as all the woo-woo sounds, they tend to almost cancel each other out. I have noticed that at my house when I run two or three in the garage at once. You'd think it would be very cool, but I'd almost prefer to watch and focus on one at a time. When I visited there in the early 80s (I think 1981 or 1982), I was dismayed to walk into the laundry and find all the green gone and 8 brand new GE coin-ops along with 8 standard dryers, in four stacks of two. We liked the dryers but I missed the WP washers. One thing that was cool about the GEs - when a couple dropped out of spin at the same time, you'd hear that "Clack clack!" in stereo. That I did enjoy about them. Gordon |
Post# 422071 , Reply# 6   3/11/2010 at 17:42 (5,156 days old) by stainfighter (Columbia, SC)   |   | |
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I thought I was the only one that did that! lol, I liked doing that because of the way the first would start the spin cycle, the second...the third...
my favorite laundromat memory from childhood - an all FRIGIDAIRE laundromat in West Beach Haven, NJ summer of 1968, the timer clicks, the smell of bleach, Tide, (Real) Wisk, Lemon Fresh FAB...the sounds of multiple thumpers goin' at it! |
Post# 424699 , Reply# 9   3/24/2010 at 23:12 (5,143 days old) by StrongEnough78 (California)   |   | |
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