The circa 1922 house I grew up in has a concrete double tub laundry sink and my Mom had/has suds-saver machines.  She uses the half closest to the washer for saving the wash water, and the other hose is a bit longer to reach over to the other half of the sink for the rinse water discharge.

I believe it used the same pump as was used to drain the water, that is in Kenmore/Whirlpool models.  On the models equipped there was a setting on the knob called "Suds" There is a solenoid valve to switch between the 2 hoses.  I believe the valve moved to the pump's intake, sucking up the water.  I don't know if the pump would work if you took the hose out of the water and it lost its "prime" but most of the time people left the hose in and it pumped back just fine.  Then the timer would proceed into the normal wash cycle. 

Hi Jim,

This is new to me. What have you seen, observed, or heard? My experience has been that if rinse tubs or sinks were lacking, you would wash the three or so loads, drain the washer, and refill to rinse, one or more times. Everything being regional, your method is totally novel to me and very interesting.

See for yourself. We're quoting each other. Excuse the slow, funny voice, surprised on an Early Saturday morning. Here it is with all the splashing,

So I imagine they used a bucket to return the sudsy water to the Maytag. Interesting. I'm sure others have done it as well.

If you really like washers and washing, you might want to find a good, working, conventional washer, as they're properly called.. When my friend Dennis comes by again with his HD flix maker, I'm dying to show Underflow Rinsing in the 66 Visimatic, which goes to your point about rinsing in a wringer washer, still a rare practice. I've modified the machine to have a water inlet system, and with the drain open on slow speed, lint and other unwanted collectibles get sucked under the agitator and down the drain.

Jim, although I don't do it all the time, I genuinely enjoy doing laundry in a conventional washer, and hope to show it in detail in the coming months. It is easier than people imagine and tons o' fun.

Bob, you are correct in that the return hose does lose it's "prime", at least it does on our Maytag Dependable Care suds-saver machine.

Pete, you too are correct about susds return hose lengths.  The hoses as a rule are made to not touch the bottom of the sink were the wash water is being held so as to not draw up anything that has settled on the sink bottom.

The link below is to E.L. Mustee & Sons website where you can still buy suds tubs.  The models they show don't appear to have an integrated stand pipe though.  According to the website, Home Depot is one of their retail outlets.

I got so caught up on Jim's tale of the gas Maytag and suds-saving that I overlooked acknowledging your graciousness. So thank you both.

My friend Dennis films the movies and the last few times he came over with his camera, I wasn't up to filming. The last one we made was over a year ago. I'll get back to it.

And now back to the suds.

The Frigidaire could lose its prime easily, too, but the KM/WP's did not. They pretty much wrote the book on suds-saving; in fact, WP would not market their Automatic until they perfected the Suds-return. And as has been seen on this forum lately, the early machines had Suds-returns as a standard feature, built into the wash cycle, without any special separate switches. The Suds were returned and the wash cycle proceeded without interruption, automatically. You didn't have to move the dial as is the case on some later models.

The suds hose was indeed designed to reach the bottom of the tub, but the siphon would break to prevent the last half inch or so from entering the washer. Some hoses were cut at an angle at the bottom, other created an angle by the placement of the hose, but I saw many that were nearly flush with the bottom, and a few that sucked up all the water. Most loads did not have muck or stuff in the washing liquors, as they were once comically called. You'd save the grime for last, and not save that water by removing the plug from the sink.

The early WP/KM machines did not allow the save or drain/dispose option. All wash water was pumped out the suds hose, and all rinse water, including the post-wash spray rinses, came out the L-shaped drain hose; hence, all the valve clanging that so many of us came to love. If you didn't want to save the suds, you simply left the stopper out of the sink. There was no way to make all the water come out of one hose, as was possible in later years. I think GE's earliest suds-returns did have the save/drain/drain/ feature.

For me, few washer functions are as dramatic or as satisfying as watching the original suds-returns at work.

EDIT: PS, Dave, the other flix are on another channel. Dennis had trouble finding the first channel so he made EasySpin 1.

You've hit the nail on the head with your explanations.  All of Mom's GE's had the option of saving or draining suds, and from what I remember you had to move the dial once the suds were returned to continue with the regular wash cycle. 

Yesterday at an estate/tag sale there was an 80's Maytag set for sale and the suds-saver washer was located next to a concrete double tub laundry sink.  It had the suds hose on one side of the sink, and rinse discharge hose on the other side.  It was exactly the same set-up as what my Mom had/has.  Didn't see what the asking price was for the set though. 

My Aunt Alice had a pink GE in her kitchen with the alum hook drain hose in the sink. Curled up behind the machine was the attached suds hose. Thank God I never touched the lever. "Drain" was unmarked and in the middle, between SAVE and RETURN if my young memory is accurate.

It was a TOL, mid-to-late 50's with many metal levers in a row with salmon tabs. She was really strict then, and had I flooded the kitchen, I might not be here right now. ;-D

The suds hoses on Moms 2 GE's had a wire wrapping around them, and they were cut at an angle at the end to help break the suction before the tub was completely emptied.  Hers and our Maytags have slanted hose ends also.

When we were first married some friends of ours were over one evening to see the house.  When we mentioned that we had received a suds-saver machine from my parents as a wedding gift, her comment was "how cheap can a person be."  I think it's great to have one as a daily driver, and it helps save on the water bill.

I've heard that solid tub GE's returned the water to the outer tub, then arriving in the inner tub via the filter-flo. Is that correct? And that the agitator was in motion. Do any of the perf tub GE's have suds-savers? Thanks.

Your friends do not realize that it's only been in the last half century or so that people dumped perfectly clean, hot, soapy, cloroxed water down the drain after one use. Before that, it was unthinkable.

Slowly, we can assemble a comprehensive history of Suds-savers. We have the WP/KM, the MT and with you, the GE, in place. But many of the solid tubs of the 50's like the Norge are still out there.

It would be cool to know how it came in thru the fill flume. We learned the other day, that SQ used a smaller separate pump the way Frigidaire did, and we could tell from seeing Patrick's machine that it operated through the 4 minute fill, just like Frigidaire. But this is cool news. While Frigi had a separate flume, your SQ was routed right in with the fill flume and probably aerated too. How exciting! So that's the last piece in the SQ version of the Suds-return. The more we know, the better it gets.

David, depending on what machine you are currently using, you may be able to siphon the water back into your machines, until you get one of your suds machine back on line.

Yes, it is true that the wash water in the 1967 GE was returned to the tub via the Filter-Flo with the agitator in motion.  Mom's circa 1984 GE suds-saver had a perforated tub, and the suds came in from the bottom.  When the tub was about 1/2 full the Filter-Flo pump would kick in while the suds were still coming in from the bottom.

That must have been really cool: suds coming in from the top and the bottom. Love to see that. Leave it to GE for drama, as if the mini-basket fill were not enough with all that fury as the filter-flo fills the dancing tub. Chubby Checkers and Let's Do the Twist.

Another piece, Tim, thanks. Amazing.

Edit PS: You're the first person I've heard tell of the perf tub GE suds. Wonder how many are out there.

POLKA

I don't know how many GE suds-savers may still be out there, but I do know that in 1998 when we were shopping for our current Maytag Dependable Care set, the appliance store had to special order the washer because this was when Maytag was phasing suds-savers out of production.  My wife has already said that she wants to keep the washer going as long as possible because she grew up in a wringer washer household.  For her, saving wash water is the norm.  YAY!!!

Ditto.

Gary, the Maytags returned the suds from the bottom of the tub while agitating exactly like the non-waterfall WP/KM's. Geoff has an MT suds and there is a video of it. No surprize that Maytag imitated Whirlpool's perfection of their well-researched, tested and simplified system. Petek has cited the video of this.

The first WP/KM's did not recirculate but indeed returned suds, a standard feature then.

If your Frigi is a uni- multi- or roller-matic, make sure you've got enough water in the outer tub to get the siphon going. Just let the tub fill for a few seconds, couple quarts should do, throw the water, then start the agitation till the gushing water is strong--only seconds--and stop the agi/pimp. The siphon should be perfect. And the hose has to be secure. If it's a standard hose, you have to secure it to the bottom of the sink. Ours was easy because the sinks had a sliding lid, so you'd just pull the hose into the sink till the neck fit against the bottom, then slide the lid across and lock it in. Excuse me if you already know this. If it's a perf tub Frigi, I have no experience there.

The 1-18's with perforated tub will also suck suds back in. I just wired around my water level switch to get a dry agitate. The 1-18 does require the "pump priming" of 10 seconds of fill, then immediate spinout, then I flip my switch to dry agitate and immediately get the suction going. Do it all on low speed, it works for me. The 75 Filter-Flo also requires the pump priming 20 seconds of work, while my "monkey-rigged water level switch suds machines-dry agitate" 79 Maytag and 60-WP both almost always suck immediately in dry agitate, especially the 'Tag, never a problem..

I do not own any genuine suds machines, but I have rewired and gotten all to work so far. Someday I'll find a real one, I hope.

My 78 Norge, I mis-wired and am currently getting agitation that starts as fresh flume water enters, I need to splice into a different water level switch wire for try #2, dry agitate. But I did at least shut off water valves, and yes it sucks back the suds with no priming. Soon I'll try wiring attempt #2.

While I wish all my machines were truly automatic suds machines, I have found easy ways to get them all to be "manual suds savers." For hobbyists like many of us, I find the once a week of evening of 4 machines with one wash water to be a fun and busy chore, swapping hoses from tubs to drains and such. But many would prefer a real automatic suds machines like many from the 50's, I don't blame them.

My only problem----whites! I start with very hot water, and Biz and OxiClean and powder detergent, and let them soak, but I am afraid of Clorox because the next load isn't white. If I do occasionally add Clorox, which I like for whites, that's the one load where I do not save suds. Am I a chicken about "used" Clorox damaging the next load? With summer coming, I do lots of white socks, Tees, etc, more than winter.

My Grandma Wilde was born in 1903, and grew up on a farm west of Wausau which was homestead property.  They finally got electricity in the mid 1930's thanks to FDR, and the REA (Rural Electrification Act).  She remembered her family getting a gas-powered Maytag with a flex exhaust hose that they could stick out the basement window.  This was sometime in the mid 1920's.  From what she told me, they had a wood stove in the cellar, a sink with a pump for water, and clotheslines for use in the winter.

Not reading carefully, it first sounded like Jim's friends used the pig water to wash the clothes. Laughing at myself.

that the systems are the same. In fact, I think Geoff D's Suds Tag is an AMP. There is a video somewhere.

The Speed Queen's version of a suds return is a miracle of engineering. Holy Cow! I'm going to have to re-read and study because I didn't get it all the first time. But thanks so much for finding and scanning this. For me, it's candy.

If you all want me to maybe I can start a petition for Whirlpool to bring the suds saver back.  It would certainly be better than the low water level on the Roper.