Vintage Appliances

[LizzieMaine]

I am really interested in 50s era stoves and fridges and while it's a distant day that I will be in my own home and need one I had a few questions.

How reliable are the cooking temperatures? Do they still get in the right neighborhood? We have a modern stove that is inaccurate and it drives us crazy.

How safe are they?

How reasonable are they to acquire (in a range of cost)? I'm sure they are less than the 3500 repro I was looking at from Elmira!

How easy and costly are they to maintain?

I know these are broad questions. I'm totally clueless about this!

Thanks!

If you get a '40s-'60s Hotpoint range, it's easy to recalibrate the oven temperature knob -- just pull it off the shaft and you can remove a clip from the back of the knob allowing you to rotate the scale. Just measure the temperature with a good oven thermometer, and set the knob to match, and you should be reasonably accurate. No digital foolishness to mess with!

Hotpoint parts are also very easy to find -- burners and oven elements are still readily available through your local dealer, or you can order them online and save a few bucks by replacing them yourself with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

Reflector bowls should be replaced annually -- the modern replacements available are cheap thin steel, and burn up fast.

I've owned my Hotpoint for about twenty years, bought it for $50 at a second-hand store, and in that time have replaced the oven element once -- I think it cost me $40 or so to order from the dealer downtown, and I installed it myself in about fifteen minutes. One of the top burners is bad, and I should probably replace it as well, but I haven't bothered since I rarely have need to use all the burners at once.

Basically, just keep it clean and there's no reason it couldn't run forever. The fewer gadgets and gizmos and self-cleaning doodads, the fewer things there are to go wrong.

 

[NoirDame]

Thanks Lizzie! I always can count on you!

 

[Foofoogal]

A bit off topic but my friend just got these for her little girls. Way too cute!
http://www.bestbuysalways.com/servlet/Detail?no=52

Pottery barn has them also and other places.

 

[Flivver]

Hotpoint Ranges

My Mom had a ca 1954 Hotpoint range when I was a little kid. I loved that stove because it had pushbuttons to control the temperature of each hotplate rather than the usual rheostat and knob.

For each hotplate, there was a vertical column of five pushbuttons that lit up in color as they were pushed. The "cool" pushbutton lit up blue when pushed. The next button up lit green, then yellow then orange then red for the high heat setting. There was also an off button for each hotplate.

What a great range! I'd love to have one like it today>

 

[FStephenMasek]

My great-grandmother's 1941 Toastmaster bit it just a few years ago after 60+ years service to 4 generations. I wonder if my mom still has it...

What went wrong? You can buy nichrome wire (the heating element) and repair that if it has failed.

 

[Johnny B]

All my appliances are 40-50s vintage so I can field a few questions

First, most were painted with lead, lined with asbestoes and filled with mercury (thermometers)

While most people would start freaking out (It is a FIRE HAZARD and if a BABY eats your refrigerator there is LEAD in the paint and it will start on fire and the baby will BURN and then your cat, attracted by the noise, will be crushed by the fridge!) these amounts are so minimal they're harmless.

Really, with asbestoes you need to work in a mine of it for 20 years to bother getting any health risks

BUT it does mean they're nearly impossible to dispose of. If your compressor should fail, good luck trying to get a replacement. But, nobody will take it because it violates current health and safety standards for garbage removal. You'd have to have the compressor removed and (at least here in Canada) certified by someone or other that it poses a low risk of exploding or something.

Parts are fairly abundant on ebay, antiqueappliances.com, whathaveyou. Seals are almost always needed if you get a fridge. They're easy to replace on your own, finding the right match, not so much. You can also purchase a strip of seal and cut it like the one in the fridge to match.

Most of my appliances don't have grounds. Apparently this means if there is a short, I could get electrocuted if I touch the metal. I've never heard of this being a problem in the 40s or 50s, but you can replace the plugs on your appliances easily. Just make sure the ground wire is wrapped around some metal part of the appliance, like a screw that touches the frame or whatever.

There's also the electricty useage. My fridge uses less electricity than a modern Frigidaire because it has less bells and whistles but also because it has a really good seal on it to keep the air in. Vintage stoves also use less electricity if their seals and doors are tight because they radiate almost no heat. Because there's less stuff to screw around with, they're often easy enough to fix yourself if you know what you're doing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's also the electricty useage. My fridge uses less electricity than a modern Frigidaire because it has less bells and whistles but also because it has a really good seal on it to keep the air in. Vintage stoves also use less electricity if their seals and doors are tight because they radiate almost no heat. Because there's less stuff to screw around with, they're often easy enough to fix yourself if you know what you're doing.

This is a point well worth repeating -- a 30s-40s vintage refrigerator, especially, will *NOT* cost you more to run than a modern one, no matter what propaganda you might have heard to the contrary. It breaks my heart to think of how many perfectly serviceable old fridges have been tossed out because people bought into the line that a modern unit is "more energy efficient." It isn't, not by a long shot -- it's more efficient than a comparable *'70s or '80s* unit, but that's very different from a '30s-'40s machine. A modern fridge with a big freezer compartment, an automatic defrost unit, an ice maker, and a water pump is always going to use a lot more power than a vintage fridge with none of the doodads, a much smaller inner capacity, and a more efficiently designed compressor. And that's to say nothing of the savings you'll have by not having to replace the whole unit every ten years or so because it keeps breaking down -- my 1945 Kelvinator, over the past twenty years, has outlasted two of my mother's modern fridges, and will probably outlive me.

 

[Flivver]

Reliable Kelvinators

When I was a grad student at MIT from 1979-81, my roommate and I had a late 1940s Kelvinator refrigerator in our dorm room. It came with the room.

Because Kelvinators were made by the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation (makers of Nash automobiles), I drew a 1949 Nash advertisement on the front door of the Kelvinator with a marker pen. (Yes I now know I was defacing a classic but I was a foolish college student...). I left the Kelvinator in the room when I graduated.

Three years ago I was working with a recent graduate of MIT. When I told her I had lived in Ashdown House she asked me if the refrigerator with the Nash ad on the door was there "way back" when I was. She nearly fell over when I told her I was the artist! But that meant that the Kelvinator was still giving good service into the 21st century.

 

[FStephenMasek]

It is unlikely that the asbestos insulation inside of the stove, especially if it is just in gaskets, would release any meaningful quantity of fibers, and certainly not a level above the OSHA Permissible Exposure Limits unless it is disturbed.

The lead on old appliances (and tubs, toilets, sinks, and ceramic tiles) is in the glaze, so can only become airborne or be made into dust if the items are broken or attacked with a grinder.

Really, with asbestoes you need to work in a mine of it for 20 years to bother getting any health risks.

I am an asbestos consultant, and own an environmental consulting company. Your statement is dead wrong. Many people are exposed to asbestos by doing rennovation or demolition work. People tend not to take asbestos seriously because it does not kill immediately, but generally takes 15 to 40 years for the desease to become evident. Another problem is that people do not generally know that asbestos was used in numerous common building materials, and was used until the middle to late 1980s in such common materials as drywall joint compound, stucco, flooring materials, HVAC ducts, and mastics. Breaking, sanding, demolishing, or other such work can release vast quantities of asbestos fibers. Up to the late 1970s asbestos was also used in pipe, boiler, and tank insulation, acoustic plaster, acoustic ceiling texture, duct insulation, structural steel fireproofing, and numerous other materials. Many materials have been banned, but the bans did not take effect as soon as they were enacted. Many other materials are still legal, as a substantial portion of the attempt to ban materials was overturned in court.

But, nobody will take it because it violates current health and safety standards for garbage removal. You'd have to have the compressor removed and (at least here in Canada) certified by someone or other that it poses a low risk of exploding or something.

There are two issues. The first is the refrigerant. Here in the USA, it has to be removed by a certified technician. Second, the compressor contains a heavy oil. However, there are appliance recycling companies who take the entire unit, so you do not have to fiddle with such details.

 

[Johnny B]

I am an asbestos consultant, and own an environmental consulting company. Your statement is dead wrong.

And your job hinges on people wanting asbestoes removed because they believe it's dangerous

 

[FStephenMasek]

And your job hinges on people wanting asbestoes removed because they believe it's dangerous

Any good consultant does not recommend removal unless there is a need to do so. Did you notice that I indicated that there should be no reason to avoid an old stove?

You might want to read up on the deaths from asbestos. Since WWII is often mentioned on this site, what about the workers in places such as San Diego who died from asbestos exposure while building ships, and their wives who died from asbestos exposure just from washing their work clothes?

Unfortunately, people will still be dying from it 30 years from now, due to all of the rennovation and demolition work which is performed illegally. The simple steps needed to limit exposures, especially keeping it wet and wearing a good respirator, are only common amongst contractors hired to remove asbestos.

You might also want to read Magic Mineral To Killer Dust, a real classic indicating that the dangers were known 100 years ago!

 

[jayem]

This is a little to vintage for the Golden Age, maybe now considered a dated antique. In my first house, we had an old pipe coal stove. Yes, I first learned how to cook on that! This wasn't too long ago, either, about late 80s, early 90s. The house I was born in was built in 1883, and my mom loved the stove too much to pitch it. Plus, it was in wonderful working condition. We had a newer oven in the basement, but often food would come out better in the old stove.

Among some odd things we found when we moved in, there was a practically brand new wringer washer in storage, a rusted crank mixer, and a coal shute. We also had a metal pole with a loop on the top in our front yard which was used to tie horses up.

 

[dhermann1]

Old fridges

The major objection I would have to a vintage fridge would be the freezer. The old ones have those tiny freezers that fill with ice quickly, especially in summer. If you haven't had the pleasure of defrosting a freezer chest of that sort, it's no fun. You have to take all the perishable stuff out, often throw it away, and wait for big chunks of ice to melt and break up. A major pain in the butt. Plus you can't keep modern frozen foods in them because the temperature never gets to that deep 0 temp required for long term storage. I wish it were otherwise. I suppose one could adapt, but not me.
Now, there's nothing wrong with having an entirely separate freezer. We had that in the house we rented in 1955 and it worked fine. But that's another large appliance to deal with.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Defrosting

I defrost mine with a hand-held hair dryer -- the whole job takes about an hour, and gives me a chance to give everything a good cleaning. I do it twice a year, and when my niece was younger I used to have her come up and help me -- she got to play with the ice chunks! (Somehow now that she's a teenager she doesnt find it quite so entertaining...)

 

[Johnny B]

I stick a pan under mine, unplug it and put handtowels soaked in boiling water on the ice for 5 minutes, then take a knife and pry the ice off. It usually comes off in solid sheets. Takes 20 minutes, plus cleanup

 

[Flivver]

The first time my college roommate and I tried to defrost our vintage Kelvinator we flooded our dorm room! (it was thickly caked with ice)

Later we discovered the ice pick and hair dryer routine. That worked just fine.

 

[Sweet Leilani]

Got the 1940 Hotpoint back from the refrigeration guy this past weekend! It runs like a champ, and much less freqeuntly than our "new" fridge in the kitchen. It will be interesting to see how much electricity it actually uses, but I can't think it will be too much. We're keeping it around 37 right now, and have it stocked with all the necessities:

 

[FStephenMasek]

I am looking at this fridge, it needs a new seal. Does anyone know if they are easy to replace?

Waht make and model is that? The shelves are an excellent idea!

 

[Miss 1929]

That is the prettiest fridge!

We got a 1930 Wedgewood gas stove and just hooked it up and away we went. The thermostat seems to be fine, when I set it at corn muffins temp, I get corn muffins as expected!
It took haunting Craigslist every day for a week, but it was extremely cheap and came with the 4 jadeite shakers... all for $100.00! Not bad.
Love my stove...

 

[Flivver]

Waht make and model is that? The shelves are an excellent idea!

I'll bet it's a General Electric from the late 1950s.

My parents replaced their Kelvinator with a swivel-shelf GE very much like this one in 1958.

That chrome foot bar across the bottom was used to open the door.