Hoover Film From 1950

[turbo500]

Living in 2013 we have much to be thankful for

Well said, Al!

There will always be things that aren't great, but in balance, things are pretty damn good compared with times gone by.

Because now, it is more common that both the husband and wife go to work, familes can enjoy more things together like holidays and day trips. The wife's role is considerably different, thanks to innovations such as the vacuum cleaner and washing machine making household chores a doddle. Husbands can now take part of their wifes maternity leave and stay at home with the children, should they wish to.

LGBT people can now get married and have familes of their own.

And as you mentioned, thanks to sites like this and various social networking sites, we can socialise with many more people in places we would formerly never have dreamed of.

The world if now full of options and choices, whereas I think people were a lot more stuck with what they had before. You were born into a situation and that was that. We are now at a point where we can make choices and our life can be exactly what we want it to be.

 

[thekirbylover]

here is another one

about the kitchen appliances this time, its quite surprising how they had all the appliances that we have today

 

[vintagerepairer]

A downside, if I may

of the marvelous invention that is the internet is that a good deal of people of all ages -but particularity our younger generations- are either losing, or indeed not gaining at all, a number of social skills which are pretty much essential for the 'real world' if I may call it that.

A recent radio broadcast described a section of the population as being "keyboard warriors", that is to say literally hiding behind their computer keyboards and saying all manner of things which they would never dream of saying, or have the nerve to say, to someone face to face.

A harmless debate about something or another; a comment about a matter which someone else does not find interesting; and worse still (and again I got this term from the radio) those "dolls" who search the internet looking for opportunity to cause a stir.

It never ceases to amaze me as to why this amazing technology has to be used for the poorest of applications.

 

[sebo_fan]

Well of course the greatest invention is the fact that you can now plug electrical items into a wall plug socket. My gran used to tell me a time when you had to use the plug on the main ceiling lamp after taking out the bulb. I couldn't believe that.

 

[portable]

<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">Thanks to all for these fun films. </span>


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;"> </span>


<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms,geneva; font-size: medium;">If our houses were all Hoover, our troubles would be few! I'm running right out and buying the Hoover Automatic Washer, the Hoover cleaner, that nifty floor polisher, and the great iron. [I love that blue floor polisher - I think we only had a drab brown and a red one over here across the pond - before the more colorful ones of the later 50's.] - John</span>

 

[tolivac]

Count me in,too-I want those Hoover machines-The washer,vacuum,floor machine and iron.At the end-both succeeded in knocking each other off the ladder-in their household-the ladder is a weapon!Mable and hubbie looked like a pair of bookends!But they went to their Hoover dealer!This would also make a good safety fim on how NOT to use a ladder.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Th 1950's

was an explosion of colour for many things to do with the home.

And yes, the overhead light socket was once the only means of providing electricity to a room. Wall sockets existed of course, very early on, but the lack of appliances available (not to mention the price of those that were) meant that to keep down the cost of the installation of electricity in existing homes, often light fittings were the only power points fitted.

This presented three major saftey issues: firstly, an overhead lampholder suspended from a flex was never going to tollerate all the movement when the flex of a vacuum cleaner, iron, or hairdryer was attached to it, causing it to wear out quickly.

Secondly, the bayonet style plug was not capable of providing an earth connection, so a good deal of earthed appliances were used without the earth wire attached. Indeed back in the day, many a manufacturer gave instruction on how best to do this, in the case of Hoover cleaners they even went so far as to attach a 2-pin plug to a 3-core (earthed) cable, ready for the consumer to plug in!

Thirdly, one cannot underestimate the potential for the trips and falls and so on which must have taken place as people climbed on chairs and tables to plug in an appliance to the light socket.

There is also a theory that Hoover used to provide a dirtsearcher light to its cleaners to compensate for the fact that the user may well have had to remove the only artificial light source available in order to plug in the vacuum cleaner. This may or may not be true, but I think it is interesting. Of course, as soon as the manufacturers began making light fittings, so the production of all sorts of switches and adapters came onto the market too. One such beast was the 2-way light fitting adapter, allowing a bulb and an appliance to be attached to a light fitting at the same time.

Thankfully, as time progressed, more and more British Standards came into effect, and UK wiring became so much safer. We had high-quality accessories, and year after year changes to fuseboxes and so on meant that we are much safer now than ever before. However, sadly what has gone by the board now is the quality of our 13 amp plugs and electrical accessories. Even less than 15 years ago we still had the choice of many a high-quality UK bases electrical accessory manufacturer, but now several have gone out of business, whilst others have merged, and production of all -it would seem- has gone to the far east.

 

[tolivac]

Another safety issue for using lamp sockets to power appliances-heating machines like irons and such may draw more current than what the light socket is rated for-thus possible fires.The US went thru such a phase when other appliances than lights were introduced.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Overloads

were of course a very real possibility, but my own memory is such that I believe families in the UK who were reliant on running appliances from a solitary overhead light fitting were unlikely be the families who could afford many of the few appliances available. What they had were likely to be of relatively low wattage too, if you take, say, a dry iron it would usually consume around 700 watts, something which a lighting circuit could withstand, especially when one considers that the demand for electricity elsewhere in the same house at the same time would be practically nil.

Also, certain heaters and kettles were sold in a variety of wattages so as the consumer could buy one which was supported by their particular wiring system.

However, by the late 1940's, here in the UK it became clear to the authorities that more & more high-wattage appliances were going to be invented and of course sold, and indeed sooner rather than later. This led to the beginning of standardization of UK wiring, the most notable and visually obvious indicator being the new style square-pin, 3-pin fused plug, the likes of which was to replace all manner of other plugs currently in use. And rare as it is, more than 70 years on, I know for a fact that round pin plugs of the 2 & 3 pin style can still be found to be in use in some UK homes, and I'm not talking about modern wiring systems which permit 2amp and 5amp round pin plugs for lighting-only either. But thankfully it is fair to assume that almost all UK homes will have been using the "new" fused plugs for more plenty of years.

 

[anthony]

the 23 year old and the chips

i wonderd how long it would take to get some 23 year olds back up not long then

 

[collector2]

From the information I have been given early on in some parts of the UK the electrical boards had two meters on a house. One supplied power for lighting, which was billed at a very reasonable rate. While the other supplied everything else and was way more expensive. People got around this by using the light sockets for most small appliances so they could use the cheap rate.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Two meters

Now that I had never heard. Interesting.

For a good deal of years there has been the economy 7 service, which gives 7 hours of very cheap electricity overnight, useful for homes which rely on storage heating, but it's usefulness is pretty much limited to storage heating. This is because the "day rate" of electricity is so very much higher than it is for none-Economy 7 consumers, and this is all year round, so you really have to draw a heck of electricity during the night throughout the winter & colder times in order to make the savings over the whole year.

 

[anthony]

i would

imagine its a good saving considering the average storage heater is around 3000 watts and the fact that there would be at least three or four in the average house .some of the council properties i visit have them they have a dual meter giving two readings one for normal use and one for eco 7 there would also be an imersion heater giving a tank of hot water heating up through the night ,i dont think this system is very efficient as the heat is released slowly through the day so by the time evening comes around when most people want the heat its just about gone this is what tenants tell me anyway but i am sure theres a member out there thats better informed than me .Getting back to the films the little hoover washer would have been a godsend to most people back then but using one of those these days would be considered hard work .I can remember as a small boy going with my mum to the comunal wash house [usually on a monday] this was a place atached to the local swimming pool [probably because of the constant supply of hot water in there were about a dozen hotpoint empress washers all with there own belfast sink and wooden draining board [everything you needed to do the weekly wash ].My mum got one of those small Hoover washers around 1959 our house had no hot water system just an ascot heater over the kichen sink but we did have a gas boiler [think it was called THE DEAN]that had to be filled and took about 45 mins to come to the boil then the water was transfered to the washer after all the washing was done and been through the wringer mum simply pushed the machine over to the back door let down the drain hose and the hot soapy water ran into the yard and down the only drain that little washer was worth its weight in gold what with four kids to wash for but it still took best part of the day to do a weeks washing sometimes mum would do a midweek wash just to lessen the load

 

[vintagerepairer]

Savings

Hello Anthony

There is no doubt in my mind that if a whole house is heated with storage heaters then the savings made at night on the cheap rate will make up for the extra cost of electricity consumed during the day, however, my own experiences of electric storage heating is that -not withstanding the streets and villages in the UK which do not have mains gas- they tend to be apartments and flats which use this form of heating. As such, there are some wonderful portable electric radiators on sale which by my calculations would probably work out much cheaper on standard rate electricity than storage heaters on the economy 7 + higher day rate. Either way, I do not like storage heating.

A lot of the retirement flats I looked at were heated this way, indeed one of the attractions to this one I am in now was the fact that the heating and hot water is included as part of the rent as it all comes from a central system for the entire building. It is powered by gas, but we have no gas in the apartments, just the radiators.

As for your washday memories, that is a very interesting memory you have. Such things would be alien of course to many generations of today.

 

[sebo_fan]

I agree here. I had to live with storage heaters in my last rental and found them to be of little use. They were difficult to open for cleaning and some of them were too old and stank of a fishy odour when they eventually worked.

 

[spiraclean]

Geez, storage heaters... better than no heat at all, but that's all I can say about them. They do require regular tending, in that you need to anticipate the following day's weather and adjust the heat input accordingly. Get it wrong and you'll either run out of stored heat, or waste energy for no reason.

When I moved into my current flat the electricity was set up for Economy 7, which is odd considering we have gas heat and hot water on a combi boiler. There is a disused power point in the bathroom cupboard for a hot water cylinder however, so at one time there may have been a heatstore tank in there. Either way, E7 was absolutely not suited to our needs, as we generally use all of our electricity through the day when it is most expensive, but barely any at night. A call to our provider soon sorted that, and once we went onto a conventional flat-rate tariff the costs dropped considerably. Our meter still has separate day and night readings, but both are now charged at the same standard rate.

We couldn't even get the benefit of off-peak electricity by running the washer, dryer and dishwasher overnight. That's doable if you live in a house, but in a flat with neighbours downstairs, cranking up a laundrette in the small hours of the morning doesn't tend to go down too well.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Well, not withstanding the dryer, dishwashers and washing machines now use such a small amount of electricity that it's probably never going t be worth using them on Economy 7, unless of course one already has it for storage heating. Otherwise you'd have to be getting up in the night to do several loads in order to even attempt making it worthwhile!

I learned something new here again, as I always thought it was necessary to have a new meter fitted when one was discontinuing Economy 7. A house I rent had been wired for it and a new tenant wanted out. As such, the electricity provider insisted on installing a new digital meter, which in fact looked like the one already there, except half the size. This was last year.

 

[vacbear58]

Two meters & Ecomony 7

I must say I have never heard of two meters being used to provide light on one and power on the other, it was always my belief that the use of light sockets was due to the lack of wall sockets rather than anything else, and I endorse the comments made by others that they were highly unsuitable.

I was surprised to find out that our "ring main" domestic wiring system was devised as a means of reducing the use, or rather the need for, copper wiring in the post war housing boom in a period when resources were scarce.

The old way of economy seven was to have two meters, but more recently there is simply one meter with two readouts on it, one for day rate and one for night rate, I don't know when this system was introduced, but its what I have had in my current home for nearly 10 years.

I actually find storage heaters work quite well, I have only one and it generally covers my heating needs for the whole house with only an occasional supplement with additional heat during the coldest weather. There is a damper control which reduces the heat output during the day which suits me as I am out at work all day - perhaps it would be different if I was at home more, but even at weekends its OK, although you need to remember to keep doors shut. Likewise my water is heated during the night which is fine for the shower in the morning although I can boost it during the day if necessary (at day rate) - most hot water cylinders have provision for two immersion heaters, the night rate heater being at the bottom and the day rate half way up. I tend to run my washing machine and dishwasher at night too to take advantage of the cheaper electricity, although as both are cold fill only I can run them during the day without depleting the hot water.

All electric space and water heating tends to be popular with developers of apartments and small houses as it is much cheaper and easier to install, and with good insulation it can work well.

By far the WORST heating system I ever had was a warm air heating system powered by like a huge storage heater, which was totally useless. This was in 1977 when I moved into a council flat which had probably been built about 10 years before and was not well insulated. At the time it was very expensive to run and, as the air outlets were all at ceiling level, all it did was heat the air at the top of the room. That was not used for long I can tell you!

Al

 

[vintagerepairer]

Meters

Vacbear, that meter you have is descriptive of the type installed in the property I rent out. The new meter looked almost identical, except it was half the size and did not have the facility to take dual readings.

Inexplicably, and like another member mentioned about their own property, this flat I purchased had long been connected to mains gas and had gas central heating. Why the Economy 7 had never been altered was beyond me, indeed I never even noticed until the tenant contacted me. I never actually lived in the premises so hadn't really had a bill in my name.

Though I have no doubt it can work well, for a flat like the one I speak of, one would have to use very little power on the day rate to make it worth the while of heating the two or three storage heaters which would have been here originally. I suppose for people who are out at work all day then it's not much of a problem, though it does seem that the heat is being expelled in their absence.

 

[vacbear58]

Wash houses

Anthony is correct in that for many industrial areas there were public wash houses available to do the laundry, attached to swimming baths or public bath houses where again there would have been copious supplies of hot water. These would have been a boon top many housewives living in small, and often over crowded, houses where there would have been few facilities for washing and even fewer for drying clothes in the often temperamental British climate. As well as camaraderie while attending to the family wash, they could also get the whole lot washed and DRIED, and sometimes even ironed in one fell swoop.



I have seen pictures of wash houses provided in some post war housing developments (actually using Hotpoint Empress too) but these were the exception rather than the rule, do to the ever present pressure to keep prices low. However, the vast amount of private housing developments from the 1920s onward did not have these facilities so it was either send them "out" to a laundry or struggle with them yourself, often in a tiny kitchen. So, although they would be scorned by today's society, a washing machine such as the Hoover would have been little short of a god send to any housewife with a whole week's laundry for a family to face. Actually the water from an Ascot should have been hot enough for the Hoover but they did struggle with the long established tradition that clothes needed to be boiled so portable boilers (Electrical = Burco, Gas = Dean, same company though) remained popular and why, very quickly washing machines with heaters became the standard here aside from the problem of limited hot water supplies when water was only heated by a back boiler on the living room fire place.

In fact they probably did not NEED to be boiled with the development of detergents after the WW2, although we did wear clothes a lot longer then than we do now. I expect most people of my age remember the bars of Fairy (green) or Sunlight (yellow) household soap by the kitchen sink ready to be used to scrub collars and cuffs. I even remember Fanny and Johnnie Cradock advertising Fairy Soap back in the 1960s - Opening line, Fanny to Johnnie, while brandishing a shirt collar at him "Been down the coal hole?".

Al