Rotary clothes dryer
A rotary clothes dryer , clothes umbrella or laundry mushroom , often called Stewi shortly after the manufacturer of the same name in Switzerland , is a hinged frame for hanging up damp laundry after washing in order to dry it.
The folding mechanism is vaguely reminiscent of an umbrella turned upside down . Instead of the cloth, however, lines are inserted here, which are attached to three to four extension arms like a spider web . If the umbrella is opened, the clotheslines are stretched and you can attach the clothes to them with clothespins . With simple models, the lines hang freely when folded. More complex devices have hollow arms and load the lines via a weight in the shaft so that they are pulled completely into the interior of the arms when they are folded. Essentially, they serve as a space-saving solution for the clotheslines that used to be firmly tensioned in gardens, which is why the dry length used in the past is still often specified today. Another advantage is the simple possibility of transporting rotary clothes dryers, which means that they are no longer annoying. To do this, most models are simply inserted into a tube embedded in the floor, from which they can be easily pulled out.
Frederick Fairbourn applied for a patent in England in 1923 for the rotary clothes dryer. In 1947, the Swiss Walter Steiner (* May 31, 1921; † April 14, 2009) began producing laundry spiders made of wood and hemp ropes. The inventor and entrepreneur from Winterthur had registered around 200 patents, which included a clothes horse as well as a rotary clothes dryer . To sell his products, he founded the company Stewi , whose name - a combination of Steiner and Winterthur - gave the rotary clothes dryer its name in Switzerland.
Nowadays rotary clothes dryers are mostly made of aluminum and sometimes of steel by numerous manufacturers around the world. In addition to Stewi, there are three leading manufacturers of rotary clothes dryers in German-speaking countries : Leifheit , Vileda and Blome .
See also
Web links
- Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 3, 2005: Stewi - the clothesline as efficient as a spider web. Retrieved April 24, 2009 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ 'Rotary folding clothes dryer': Patent Number GB225711
- ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Stewi founder Walter Steiner died. Retrieved April 24, 2009 .
- ↑ Obituary in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung from April 24, 2009
- ^ Obituary Walter Steiner. Retrieved April 24, 2009 .