When you (or your family) got the 1st automated washing machine, air conidition or color tv?

[Telecolor 3007]

1) The 1st automatic washing machine: my parents (divorced for a long time) when we moved where I live. 'Automatic' - a licence of "San Girogio" (St. George) Panda - Italy. It had an enameled tub that could crack during time and that was happened;
2) Air condition... at a relative in the '90's. Window mounted, single unit. Where I livem in 2008 or 2009. It still works (probably needs freon) ... unlike a newer "Samnsung" that haves problems.
1st time I've heared about a.c. was in 1995. The Godmather of one of my step brother had it on a car - small car. I thought back then it was just a kind of fan.
3) Color tv. My paternal grandpartent, 5th of Dec. 1984. Still got the books. It's my nickname.

 

[Doghouse]

My mother had a Servis twin tub in 1959. Extremely well-made.
They had a vitreous enamel top.
They were made by Wilkins and Mitchell.

Exactly like this.

 

[Telecolor 3007]

Well, I've sayed automatic, and that's semiautomatic. But, anyway, that company made some good machines. I'm curios to see theyr 1st automatics.

 

[Adaboy5]

I remember when we got a 27in Mitsubishi tv that wasnt a console in the late 80s. It had these red and white plugs on the back and one labeled S-video. I was about 13 and wow. We never used the S-video even though we bought a vcr that could use it. Dad had a pioneer receiver one of the SX models and some big pioneer speakers but we never thought to connect it to the tv for movies.

 

[gadget73]

When I was a kid in the 80s I only knew one person who didn't have an automatic washer, and the manual job was the spare / backup machine. Its an old Maytag that he still owns and has put in service off and on for the 40 years we've known each other. It was his mom's, and I believe it was his grandmom's before that. Any time a washer would die they would roll the old Maytag wringer washer into place and do laundry like it was the 50s.

 

[mkane]

Late 50's early 60's. I was born in 1953 and don't remember. My parents house cost 10k though.

 

[ernieS]

Wait just a minute, tv comes in color???!!!

 

[old_tv_nut]

Color TV - 1966 right after I graduated college and went to work for Motorola. I bought a "20 inch" table model from employee sales. This was when tube size was outside diameter instead of viewable diagonal, so it was really an 18 or 19 inch set by modern standards. It was a hybrid chassis with tubes for the sweep circuits. Once a year, replacing the horizontal output and damper tubes would brighten up the picture. Our friends/neighbors would come over to watch shows in color.

Automatic washer: 1967, I think, after I graduated college and got a job that paid enough. We rented an apartment in a six-flat and the landlord allowed us to install it in the basement. Before that, we did all our laundry at the coin-op laundromat. I usually got the job. I was a commuter student and would do homework while waiting for the washers and dryers to finish.

Air conditioning - central air in a townhouse we rented in the early 70s. The place was probably built in the 1960s or late 50s. It had single-pane windows with aluminum frames that made it very inefficent for heating and cooling, not to mention that the furnace and A/C was not very efficient in itself.

 

[unknownk]

Central air in the mid 90's, had to change out the glass fuse box and get modern wiring (house was built in the early 1920's).

Washing machine no idea, the house still has the old vintage one with rollers you crank in the corner of the basement (too heavy and bulky for my father to move at the time).

Color TV would be a Sylvania Superset real wood console color TV with at least a couple vacuum tubes in it. I remember watching the fall of Saigon on in 1975 (I was born late 60's). We got a newer TV a few years later when we got cable (late 70's) and just used the old TV as a TV stand. I still remember watching animal house on "the movie channel". I had to dismantle that old TV to get it out of the house, man was it heavy.

 

[GordonW]

Never had central air growing up. Always had a couple of window units, that worked quite OK for our small home.

Washing machine, probably 1968 or so, when we bought our home.

Color TV, RCA 25", 1969. Dad got it specifically to watch the NASA moon landings and baseball games. That TV lasted us until the late 1980s.

Regards,
Gordon.

 

[BSome]

I am not sure on the washing machine, maybe 64 or 65 if there was not one there when they bought the house. I do remember handing mom the clothes pins and when I was old enough did my share of hanging it on the clothesline and taking it in. Color tv was around 72, but not sure.

AC was a couple of years later. It was a used 220v window unit dad put in the dining room that would blow into the living room also. A couple of fans were used to blow toward other areas. Mom did not have central air until 87 or 88 when she had to replace the furnace.

 

[sanford12]

Mid 60's for both color TV and washer. Watching Star Trek in color was awesome as a 12 year old kid. Never had AC growing up. Illinois summers were brutal with the humidity to the point there were times you couldn't sleep. Didn't buy an AC unit till 1976.

 

[krautmaster]

I'm a 1957 model and grew up in New Mexico were we only used "swamp coolers" (they work well in the high altitude/dry atmosphere here), I didn't have Air Conditioning until 1978 when I lived in the hot hell of Phoenix AZ. I also got my first car with Air Conditioning there, a well used and abused 1971 Plymouth Duster 340.

My parents bought a portable dish washer that hooked up to the sink faucet and was rolled out of the way after use - IIRC that would have been about 1966.

Our first Color TV was in 1972: I recall seeing Hawaii Five-0 in color... "book 'em Dano" ! We had three and a half channels to choose from: ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS when it was working !

 

[Telecolor 3007]

But a.c. was so expensive then then it was so expensive that couldn't be bought in loans?

 

[krautmaster]

But a.c. was so expensive then then it was so expensive that couldn't be bought in loans?

I don't remember anybody in NM that had A/C in their cars in the 60's and 70's except my Grandfather, who brought his 68 New Yorker station wagon with him from New Jersey when he moved to NM. It seems that it just wasn't hot very often, and if it was it didn't last more than two days.

 

[gadget73]

It was expensive, but in dry climates swamp coolers work very well and cost a whole lot less, so I'm not surprised AC wasn't a huge thing in a desert state. They existed for cars too.



basically you put water in the tank, it draws up through a wick, air blows over it and the temperature drops as the water evaporates. Completely useless in the land of humidity but lovely in a dry location.

 

[RickB]

I was born in 1952, I remember as a small kid we had a Westinghouse art deco styled automatic front load washer... I know I had to be under 5 years old...my mom's mom had one for years after we updated our washer at home... I remember hers out in their detached garage.

I guess it was about the time when my first sister was born that we got an automatic clothes dryer, I remeber it was to help with all the diapers...

I remember Mom doing ironing with a dry iron, no steam iron, and using a glass bottle with a sprinkler head on it to dampen clothes as she ironed, no plastic spray bottles back then! I remember her starching clothes in the washer with Niagara powdered starch before ironing...this was before "permanent press" clothes were a thing...

We used to have swamp coolers in our house until they dug a drainage project next to the house when I was about 5, and the coolers sucked in carbon monoxide from the heavy machinery and nearly poisoned my mother and me... My father quickly installed window air conditioners instead of the coolers...this all happened before my sister was born when I was five...

In the late fifties and early sixties, my dad used to install under-dash air conditioners in people's cars.
He did one in my grandfather's 1954 Buick he used as a beater that would sometimes run so cold it would freeze up the evaporator coil...he put one in our 55 Chevy station wagon and his work truck, and later one in our 62 Mercury Monterrey

Dad bought one of San Antonio's oldest major appliance/refrigeration service companies right after I was born in 1952, so we always had decent appliances.

We got our first color TV in the mid to late '60s; it had a round tube with a mask that flattened the top and bottom of the viewing area...it was a Bradford from WT Grants, a company for which we did deliveries and warranty appliance service . It was in a plain black steel cabinet and had spindly legs screwed into the bottom...

 

[0b11011001]

Born in 62. Parents always had an automatic washer. My mom loved to hang clothes out to dry, but we also had a dryer by the early 70s. Large window unit AC in the early 70s as well. In that same decade, house had central heat, and color TV.

 

[Westy56]

I'm a 1957 model and grew up in New Mexico were we only used "swamp coolers" (they work well in the high altitude/dry atmosphere here),

99 degrees outside yesterday and the house was a comfortable 76 with no problem. This is with two year old pads.

We got central air when I was a kid in MI and it always made me feel too cold.

 

[0b11011001]

99 degrees outside yesterday and the house was a comfortable 76 with no problem. This is with two year old pads.

We got central air when I was a kid in MI and it always made me feel too cold.

76 is too warm for me.

We visited my never and her husband when they lived in Sierra Vista AZ, and while outside temp was not especially hot, indoor was not pleasant and stuffy. He did not run the AC.

The only swamp coolers I saw out there were on older houses near Ft Huachuca. They were much older homes, and not kept up.

Sierra Vista was all central HVAC cooling in newer construction homes.