This thread welcomes a new addition to my collection, and indeed our kitchen.

Chris in Southampton (aquarius8000) had to let go of his 9605 due to space constraints, and whilst I need a new washing machine like a hole in the head I decided to give it a home in our new kitchen.  Seeming as we've moved in and don't have a water meter, what more reason is there for having a Hotpoint toploader?  Now some may remember I acquired a 9604 just before Christmas, however it has suffered from brittle control panel syndrome (further enhanced from when I had to perform an emergency stop in the car when I was transporting it to my mum's garage), and also had a slight leak.  Meanwhile, this 9605 is an excellent example of a later Hotpoint top loader - it runs smoothly, is in good condition and runs like a champ.  It also has the Economy wash button which the 9604 doesn't, allowing me to bypass the heater and just use hot water if time/economy reasons desire.

I intend to use this machine for washing "sturdier" loads - e.g. towels, jeans whilst leaving darks, bedding etc for the front loader.  I need to sort out hot water plumbing at some point (at the moment to hot fill I have to fill it with the mop bucket - I could let it cold fill but I dread to think how long it would take to heat) - but otherwise it fits the space nicely.

Whilst at Chris' we had a nice chat about machines, swapped stories about machines and ran a load through the Servis - I have to say his enthusiasm as well as his dad's support for the hobby is second to none.  I certainly wish I had the mechanical skill at that age, and the ability to have a vintage machine in my teenage years!

Anyway, enough of my rambling, here is a picture of the 9605 in it's new home:

With the other machines in the line up

Control panel (sorry for the poor picture quality, only managed to take photos on my phone so far)

Washing a load of towels on programme 2

Filter Flo and Spiralator action.

Steve - nice picture of the 9605s together.  I always liked the ones with the aqua graphics better.  I used to always think these were the later models, but in the 1999 brochure I have (the last year the 9605 was produced) it still has red graphics in the picture.

Louis - I've worked out that I could also stack a vintage set in the kitchen (I have a Hoovermatic in one corner that could easily be rolled to another part of the house, after all I did use it as a sideboard when it wasn't being used when I lived in Nottingham!) however getting it past my beloved is another task altogether lol!

In terms of water use...

Having to hot fill with a mop bucket really highlights how much water these beauties use -  it takes approx 8.5 mop buckets (which holds 10l) to fill... so that's 85l per fill, so for a wash and 2 rinses that's  255l!  Compare that to the 42l for the Miele with the same size load, really does make it a machine for use without a water meter!  Does that change how I feel about the machine?  Nope - I bloody love it :-D.  

Jon

Here's a picture of my other Hotpoint toploader (the 9604), just for illustration purposes.  Note the lack of the Economy Wash button on this model.  These photos were taken before the effects of brittle-control panel syndrome kicked in!  Nothing a free afternoon and some careful supergluing won't fix - but certainly two lessons learnt in transporting old Hotpoints - firstly, to pack in the car a lot more tightly, and secondly - to not brake so harshly!  Saying that, you can see that the machine had suffered some cracking before - the corner of the fascia had been glued back on when I bought it, and there was a small piece of plastic missing off the top right corner, but at least this was only a machine I paid 99p for :-).

Jon