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[Door opens, footsteps]

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[Creak!] [THUD!]

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]
[vacuum cleaner noise]

4
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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]
[TV static noise]

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]
[Steam hisses]

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]
[sewing machine rattles]

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]
[*Whoop!*]

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[Jazzy music: 'The Russians Are Coming' - Val Bennett]

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Tim: Most people take their washing machine for granted,

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except for the occasional outburst of hatred, when the thing goes wrong.

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But in fact they're wonderful feats of human ingenuity.

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Although they're now so commonplace it's taken an enormous amount of

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time and effort to perfect their design.

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Only 30 years ago, automatics were rare expensive luxuries.

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And 70 years ago there were only the most primitive hand-operated machines.

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[birds tweeting] [people humming]

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All washing depends on squashing water through the fibres of the fabric.

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[person hums, pants and splashes]

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Soap helps to dislodge the dirt and carry it away in the lather.

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The first step towards mechanisation was the dolly.

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This was pummeled up and down in the washtub.

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and avoided the needed to get quite so wet, and also the need to bend down.

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From this, in the late 18th century, various hand operated washing machines were patented.

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In fact these hand operated machines continued to be made until well into the 20th Century.

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This one's called the Eddy and it actually works quite well...

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[rattling noise]
The backwards and forwards action stops the clothes getting tangled,

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and the paddles bash the clothes just hard enough to wash them,

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but not so hard that it tears them to bits.

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[quiet rattling]

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An early more radical departure from hand-washing

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had been used by sailors for centuries.

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[noise of waves]

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[wooosh] [splosh]

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The combination of agitation and a constant flow of clean water

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washed them fairly effectively, even without soap.

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[footsteps]

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[whoosh!]

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[waves and rustling fabric]

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Another way of forcing water through the clothes, is to make them tumble over each other in a drum.

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The earliest record of a machine of this type dates from 1782.

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This was the forerunner of much larger laundry machines, that rotated the drum and heated the water with steam.

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[laundry noise]

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In many respects laundry machines have remained unchanged,

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with the clothes tumbling over each other in a large drum.

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But although 140 years ago the basic principles of industrial machines had been perfected,

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domestic machines remained extremely primitive.

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The arrival of reasonably small electric motors at the beginning of the 20th Century,

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made a large number of washing actions possible.
[patriotic music]

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These early machines were particularly popular in America,

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where they were viewed with great pride.

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[music continues]

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[rattly motor noise]

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This machine was imported from Canada to Britain in the 1920s.

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The motor sits underneath, connected by a system of belts and gears.

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[rattly motor noise]

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It's really rather a splendid contraption.

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[motor off]

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Inside there's a paddle that goes backwards and forwards,

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very much the same shape as the old washing dolly.

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These machines had a very serious disadvantage,

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that they often leaked quite a bit, and the motor, the water used to drip down

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on the motor, and the switch and all the wires.

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And because water's a conductor, the whole machine could easily become live.

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I mean, I've just got a little shock off this.

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Safety was quite an important reason for enclosing the whole machine

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in a single case like this, with motor and wires and tub all in one.

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The first machines like these, looking a bit like a modern washing machine,

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appeared in the mid 1930s.

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The water still had to be heated in a separate wash-boiler.

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[typewriter keys]

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Woman: How's it coming Lyn?
[rattle of sheet removal]

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So there I was at 20,000 feet....

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Tim: The idea of a fully automatic washing machine came from America
[women continue to chatter]

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The first ones appeared in the 1920s.

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but it was another 30 years or so before they started to become practical labour saving devices.

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Woman: Brother, get this Carol!
Carol: Hmm?

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Middle: What does the emancipation of American women mean to you?

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Lyn: I know! Women's right to vote! That's the biggest thing that's happened to women since...
Woman: Since Adam's apple!

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Woman: Carol, you sweet dumb thing, pull up your flaps, you're dragin'.

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[washing machine starts to humm]

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Carol: Oh my gosh, that's a terrific angle!

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Talk about emancipation, take the family wash for instance!

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No more clotheslines!

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No more dark basements!

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No more blue Mondays!

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Boy! Here's real emancipation from old fashioned chores!

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Just set a dial, and walk away.

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That's the kind of emancipation any woman can understand.

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Tim: The first automatics appeared in Britain in the 1950s, imported from America.

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These machines were extremely expensive, costing as much as a small car.

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And most households still had no washing machine at all.

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Then in the early 1960s, this machine appeared.

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It wasn't fully automatic; it had separate wash and spin tubs.

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But it was, compared to all its competitors, amazingly cheap.

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Voiceover: Which twin tub should you buy?

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Independent tests show Rolls as good value for money.

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So if you want a twin-tub that's good and quick for washing.

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easy to use, electrically safe, good value for money

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and also gives up to a maximum of £35 in part exchange,

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then you must choose a Rolls.  Yes, a Rolls.

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For full details of the Rolls Concorde models, and this week's special offers,

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fill in the Rolls coupon in today's papers, now!

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Tim: The Rolls company, owned by John Bloom, went bankrupt in 1964,

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but by that time had enormously expanded the market for washing machines.

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Well, so much for the history. But how does a modern machine actually work?

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Well, Rex Garrod and I have made a series of models and demonstrations.

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to explain some of the mysteries of what's inside a modern washing machine.

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Well one of the first things you notice when you take the top off, is often an enormous lump of concrete.

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Rex: On this machine we've taken those large blocks of concrete out, so you can see exactly what happens...

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[washing machine starts up]

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[spins up to high speed]

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[loud thunking noises]

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Tim: The concrete's there to damp out the machine's vibrations.

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well every structure or machine has natural resonant frequencies, at which vibration can become excessive.

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Occasionally this can be useful, as I'll show you.

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This is a thunder machine.  I made it for a theatre company.

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[motor rotates quietly]
The eccentric weight on the motor is a bit like

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the washing in the drum which is never completely balanced.

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[thunder noise starts and gets louder]

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The noise is created entirely by a vibration, the weight never actually touches the steel plate.

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[thunder noise continues]

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[large laundry machine motor]

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In industrial laundry machines the effect is much greater,

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and older machines had to be bolted to the floor with massive foundations.

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Modern laundry machines don't vibrate nearly so much.

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They automatically balance the load, by pumping different

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amounts of water into the triangular pockets round the drum.

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The lights show which pockets are being filled.

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[water sloshing] [machine whirring]

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Of course domestic machines aren't so sophisticated and have to make do with their lumps of concrete.

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And if you chop a modern machine in half...

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You realise what a vast number of bits and pieces there are.

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And of course each one of them could go wrong in all sorts of ways.

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The real miracle is that most of them work perfectly all the time.

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the first thing that happens when you turn the machine on

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is that water gushes in, released by a sort of electric tap called a solenoid valve.

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[click] [water runs] [click]

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Simply pass the current through it, and the valve opens.

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The clever thing about these valves is it's just a small cylinder, and a small coil.

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And it has to resist the full force of mains water pressure.

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So I have to actuall push my finger over the end quite hard, to stop the water coming out.

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Whoops! *giggles* Ahem!

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And er, it does this by using the pressure of the water itself to stop the water coming out.

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This part is the solenoid, a sort of electromagnet.

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The steel piston in the middle is attracted by the magnetism, and pulled in when the current is switched on.

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The piston rests on the centre of a rubber disc, which acts as the seal.

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In this disc, there are two tiny holes.

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The hole in the side lets water into the space above the disk.

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and then the water pressure itself keeps it down.

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When the current is passed, the piston uncovers the centre hole and lets some water leak out.

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This lowers the pressure above the disk and lets it pop up and the water flow through.

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[laudry noise] [workers chatting]

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Today, solenoid valves have millions of uses controlling liquids and gasses.

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[laundry noise continues]

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For instance, the ironing machine in the laundry uses solenoid valves

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to release blasts of compressed air to blow the sheets flat.

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Each sheet hits a switch which opens the valves at precisely the right moment.

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[hissing of compressed air] [machine noise] [more compressed air]

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Rex: A more spectacular use for a solenoid valve, is to roll a car for a stunt, for a film or television.

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We got the solenoid valve fitted on top of this tube, which is, in effect, a cannon

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and inside the tube is a large chunk of wood, which pushes the car over.

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In the boot of the car, we've got a compressed air cylinder, full of air, at quite high pressure, about 150 pounds per square inch.

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And when I press the button, which is attached to the hand brake lever,

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that releases all the air through the solenoid valve, push against the wood, and 'woosh' away we go!

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It's far better fun than a washing machine solenoid!

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A stunt like this is carefully planned, so as hardly anything ever goes wrong.

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And of course I'm tied into that seat. It's so painfully tight with special, sort of aircraft-type seatbelts.

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It's so tight it actually hurts me. But you can't afford to move an inch

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or so, because the impact when you roll over really does hurt.

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As soon as the car starts to roll, all the electric is cut as to avoid any fire.

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There's only a pint of petrol on board, so that if the thing did catch fire that's a very minor fire.

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[Engine roars]

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[boom crash etc]

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Rex: I'm okay!

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This is the actual canon piston, which does the damage, which pushes it over.

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So you can see it's really crude, just a piece of car inner tube to seal it on the walls of the cylinder

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so that when the air comes through, it pushes it out.

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It doesn't need a lot of energy to tip it, because it's almost on the point of turning before you hit the button.

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[engine roars]

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[piston fires]

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[crash bang etc]

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Rex: That's the last one I'll ever do. I promised that to everybody.

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This is the second time I've promised not to do it again.

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*chuckles* ...Until the next job comes along.

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In this cut-away machine, you can see the position of all the parts we've been looking at.

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There's the lump of concrete.

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There are the solenoid valves where the water comes in

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through the soap dispenser and into the drum.

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And this is the pressure switch.

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Water is gushing into the machine through the solenoid valve.

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and when it reaches the right level it's got to stop.

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And that's what the pressure switch is for.

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I can show it more clearly using this bottle to replace the washing drum.

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So we turn the water on [water runs]

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And we've added some dye in here, to make it a bit more clear what's happening.

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And the switch has switched the water off.

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Well now what's actually going on is that

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air is trapped inside this little bottle on the side

200
00:14:48,977 --> 00:14:51,905
and as the level rises the air is being squashed

201
00:14:51,906 --> 00:14:56,729
and actually increasing the pressure down this little pipe, into the switch.

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00:14:56,730 --> 00:15:02,063
I think I can show this, prove this, quite clearly by...

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It has exactly the same effect if I blow into the switch, as the little bottle on the side.

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So if I release the pressure... [click - water runs] the water will start coming out,

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00:15:12,740 --> 00:15:15,353
and when I blow into it... [water stops]

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00:15:15,354 --> 00:15:19,856
[click - water starts again, and stops as Tim blows into pipe]

207
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Hmm.  Just turn it off now [click]

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00:15:22,333 --> 00:15:25,804
Well what's going on inside this switch is...

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This is one we've er, a similar size, a slightly different make, but the same sort of thing.

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We've taken it, in half.

211
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In this half the air goes in here and there's a rubber disc here.

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[quiet whistling noise]

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00:15:37,884 --> 00:15:42,347
And as the pressure increases the rubber expands.

214
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On this half the rubber pushes the metal and flicks over the switch.

215
00:15:48,504 --> 00:15:52,829
Well pressure switches, like solenoid valves have all sorts of uses.

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00:15:52,830 --> 00:15:57,121
I used one on this machine, which I made years and years ago.

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Erm, put the...
[coin clatter]

218
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[loud motor noise]

219
00:16:17,029 --> 00:16:22,471
[BANG!] [Motor whirrs down]

220
00:16:22,472 --> 00:16:29,078
Well, the pressure switch is used on this machine, to switch the motor off when the balloon bursts. 

221
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Inside here, there's a small secondary tube which goes down to the pressure switch at the back.

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00:16:35,269 --> 00:16:40,697
And as long as there's the pressure inside the balloon, the motor will keep running,

223
00:16:40,698 --> 00:16:44,189
but when the balloon bursts, the pressure drops and that turns the motor off.

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Once the washing machine's full of water the heater comes on to get it to the right temperature.

225
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You never see the heater elements because they're outside the inner drum.

226
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But they're just like the elements inside an electric kettle.

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We cut one in half here, and in the middle there's a fine wire,

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and it's this wire that carries the current.

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And closely packed around it, there's this white powder, magnesium oxide.

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This is an electrical insulator, to stop the outer casing becoming live.

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This white powder is obviously the same as the powder you get when you burn a bit of Magnesium.

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It's used because it retains its stability and insulation at the high temperatures inside the element.

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At the same time as the water starts hating up, the wash action starts.

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[whirring of washing machine motor]

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The speed that the drum goes round is critical.

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The clothes just have to get round to the top then fall,

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and that's what squashes the water through them.

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After going one way round, they pause and then go back round the other way.

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this stops clothes getting tangled up, just like in the Eddy.

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Once the wash has finished, the next stage is the spin.
[motor noise]

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[motor speed increases rapidly]

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Tim: But this apparently simple idea is quite recent,
[music]

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and early machines used much more elaborate ways to dry the clothes.

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[music continues]

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Woman: I must get this done quickly.

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Tim: The mangle, which squeezed clothes dry, had considerable disadvantages.

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[poing] Oppps!

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[water sloshing]
Woman: this new machine looks a lot better.

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Tim: The collapsible rubber drum was even less successful.

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Woman: Lets see.... Oh No! It's STILL wet! Ohhhh.

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Tim: The principle of the spin-drier is that water is forced outwards.

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Just like you're forced outwards on the fairground ride The Rotor.

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Well, in this model here, we've taken the outer casing off a spin drier,

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so you can see what's, what actually goes on.

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In this sort, the water comes out of these slits in the middle.

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Well, if I er, get out of the way.  I'll switch it on...

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[motor slowly speeds up] [water sprinkles]

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This is actually part of a separate spin-drier,

259
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but the automatic uses the same principle.

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[machine slows down]

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Tim: The water is flung into an outer drum, from there it's then pumped out the bottom.

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The pump usually has a separate small motor, beneath the drum, which is connected up here.

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Inside the pump, the water comes in through the middle

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and the impeller whizzes round and round and forces

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the water up, out, outwards.  Up through the waste hose.

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The ingenious thing about these pumps is that they resist blocking themselves up, with fluff and other small objects.

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It does this because the impeller is much smaller than the space around it.

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I think we can show you, er, how it helps, how it tries not to block itself up, with this model...

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If you start the pump going and tip some buttons into the drum...

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[clatter] [running water]

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They all go straight through the pump.

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The central part of any automatic is the programmer-timer,

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which switches everything on and off at the right moment.

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These devices had an unlikely origin.
[music]

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[Rock and roll music]

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The first automatic was made by an American company called Seaberg,

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who mostly made jukeboxes.

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In some respects, the automatic washing machine does have more in common

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with a jukebox than with a primitive electric washer.

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Both the automatic and jukebox have timers switching a sequence of operations.

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Seaberg's washing machine was a failure, but it carried on making programmer timers for other companies.

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[music continues]

283
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The modern washing machine timer is totally enclosed.

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It's a lot easier to see how it works with an industrial equivalent

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where everything is much more spaced out.

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00:21:39,174 --> 00:21:42,914
This is a small switch, called a microswitch.

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00:21:42,915 --> 00:21:46,492
And there are a whole row of them along the back here.

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00:21:46,993 --> 00:21:50,087
And at the end here there's a geared motor.

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00:21:50,088 --> 00:21:54,753
As the motor rotates it turns this drum round with these cams on,

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and these switch the microswitches on and off.

291
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[clicking of microswitches]
Each switch is connected to a different function of the machine.

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Of course, on a washing machine, it goes round much slower;

293
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one revolution for the complete wash cycle.

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I quite often use these times, because a lot of the machines I make have a sequence of actions.

295
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This one's called the chiropodist, she looks down at your foot for a bit and then looks up and twiddles her thumbs.

296
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Then she disappears beneath her counter, and tickles your foot.

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[people giggling]

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[annoying music]

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In the past few years, microprocessors have started to replace electromechanical timers. 

300
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It hasn't been easy to make a microprocessor work reliably

301
00:22:50,436 --> 00:22:53,706
inside the hot and steamy environment of a washing machine.

302
00:22:53,707 --> 00:22:58,707
And it's only quite recently, after years of development, that they've become a practical alternative.

303
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The principle of the modern automatic has changed very little in the last 25 years,

304
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except the main difference is the price,

305
00:23:06,857 --> 00:23:10,322
which, adjusted for inflation, is less than half what it was.

306
00:23:11,499 --> 00:23:13,938
[baby babbles]
Repair Man: What seems to be the trouble sir?

307
00:23:13,939 --> 00:23:18,335
Man: I've just got dirty washing everywhere...
Tim: But to make this reduction in price possible,

308
00:23:18,336 --> 00:23:20,872
the machines have changed a lot inside,

309
00:23:20,873 --> 00:23:23,123
and they're no longer built to last forever.

310
00:23:23,124 --> 00:23:27,803
The modern engineering would probably horrify pre-war engineers,

311
00:23:27,804 --> 00:23:30,298
who worshipped quality and not economy.

312
00:23:30,299 --> 00:23:33,898
Repairman: Oh, look at that engineering! Oh God! Ohhhh!

313
00:23:33,899 --> 00:23:38,756
[Baby babbles]
Man: Oh dear.  Oh dear...

314
00:23:38,757 --> 00:23:45,019
[clank crash bang]
Man: Uh. oooh.

315
00:23:45,020 --> 00:23:47,291
Tim: Most of these changes have gone unnoticed.

316
00:23:47,292 --> 00:23:52,395
The old automatics like the climatic, had complete separate chassis inside.

317
00:23:52,396 --> 00:23:57,438
In the modern machines, all the bits are just bolted to the outer casing.

318
00:23:57,439 --> 00:24:00,930
The old machines had cast iron weights,

319
00:24:00,931 --> 00:24:03,770
whereas the modern machines have their lumps of concrete.

320
00:24:03,771 --> 00:24:08,841
In the old machines the heater wires were about twice as thick as they are now.

321
00:24:08,842 --> 00:24:13,398
And the pulleys, which used to be solid lumps of cast iron,

322
00:24:13,399 --> 00:24:17,763
are now often just really tin cans full of concrete.

323
00:24:18,932 --> 00:24:21,568
[washing machine noise]

324
00:24:21,569 --> 00:24:27,224
It's tempting to think that washing machines don't last so long as they used to simply because they're less well made.

325
00:24:27,225 --> 00:24:33,417
There's some truth in this, but it's also a result of the manufacturer's great success at cutting their costs.

326
00:24:33,418 --> 00:24:39,454
It's now much often cheaper to buy a whole new machine, than it is to pay for even a simple repair.

327
00:24:39,455 --> 00:24:43,471
All the machines you've seen in this programme were scrap,

328
00:24:43,472 --> 00:24:48,256
they cost us about £2 each and they came from household waste tips.

329
00:24:48,857 --> 00:24:53,557
I hate today's disposable way of making things in all sorts of ways,

330
00:24:53,558 --> 00:24:58,929
but I can't help but admire the ingenuity of the modern washing machine.

331
00:24:58,930 --> 00:25:04,544
I hope I've managed to convey some of my enthusiasm for these ingenious contraptions.

332
00:25:04,545 --> 00:25:08,702
[washing machines run]

333
00:25:08,703 --> 00:25:49,116
[Jazzy music: 'Take 5' - Dave Brubeck]