That’s what we have in our buanderie. My great uncle had one over the open fire and later gas fire. It apparently came already installed in the brand new council house he moved into in 1925 and he used it all the time up to his death in 1989. After that, my mother and father moved into the same house until my mother died last year. Not sure what happened to it, but would have loved to reuse the nearly 100 year old one I remember from childhood.
Edit: Just realised, our family lived in the same council house for 98 years straight from when it was built.
I’ve never heard that term before. Perhaps there were different names in different parts of the country? My mother always called it an airer but I don’t know what local people called it as she was an exile from Wiltshire!
That’s what we did in the UK to avoid condensation when drying indoors.
Yes, we bought one in France several years ago. The ones I’ve seen in France are slightly different from the old style top loader in that they have a vertically mounted drum with a slot to load the washing.
us too. We bought it (as we needed one when we moved to our own house from the rental we had) in a house contents sale of an old lady who had recently died. The machine had hardly been used.
When it too eventually fell over, we were so impressed with it that we replaced it with another of the same type having always in the past used front loaders. ~9 years in with the type and still happy with it.
We had a top-loader for years, in a UK property with limited space. Worked marvellously.
Over here, we’ve had a frontloader and, in fact, not seen a toploader until my neighbour bellowed for my help a couple of years ago… she’d got one on trial.
Somehow she’d got the toploader going but the machine had ground to a STOP and she couldn’t fathom why.
“the mad English” came to the rescue…
A similar “breakdown” had happened once to me, so I knew where to check…
Yes, the daft French bat hadn’t closed the two halves properly…
How we both roared with laughter when I explained what she’d done wrong… (and translated the daft baft bit …)
Anyway, she decided that top-loading wasn’t going to be good for her nerves and she got it swapped for a frontloader which she could work in her sleep.
I’ve noticed quite a few toploaders lurking in French property ad photos and was wondering if it’s more of a thing in France. I did end up googling to see if you can even buy one in the UK to find out, you certainly can. Last time I saw such a thing in the flesh I was a student, many, cough, years ago.
Ours waa a big round open-topped tub on an integrated metal stand with a giant agitator standing up in the middle of the tub. You activated the agitator, which was incredibly efficient, by moving a big lever on the outside of the tub from left to right.
It had a mangle but we didn’t use it (although Mum had). We used it to mix milk powder up with water for calf feed, after Mum got her Hoovermatic. the Hoovermatic had a design more streamlined like Graham’s, but also had a spinner in the other half.
I’d be happy with either for what I’m looking out for one for, though I’d prefer the earlier pre-Hoovermatic type as less to go wrong.
My pots and pans are hanging from mine! If this miserable weather continues I may need to use it again for drying laundry.
If desperate, I would use the dryer at the supermarket. For a couple of euros it takes out excess moisture, I can then hang up at home.
Yes, and much more versatile. We’ve a tumble dryer we rarely use, it costs a fortune to run and damages clothes, cuffs, collars ect. But we’ve a couple of dehumidifiers (one disk nearly twenty years old and one newish compressor (courtesy of Aldi) that serve multiple purposes as well as clothes drying.
For us, a dolly was the large tub shaped like a barrel that you did your washing in before washing machines. There was also a long stick with a three pronged end like a little stool called a posser. I do remember my great aunt using one when I was vey little, and then using a hand cranked mangle to get most of the water out. Just looked it up and found this
