Speed Queen is a laundry machine manufacturer headquartered in

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Speed Queen is a subsidiary of

Alliance Laundry Systems Alliance Laundry Systems LLC is a provider of commercial laundry systems. The company designs, manufactures, and markets a line of commercial laundry equipment under various brands in over 100 countries. Among the company’s products are washer ...

LLC, which billed itself as the world's largest manufacturer of commercial laundry equipment as of 2004.

Products

Speed Queen makes a large variety of residential and commercial products, from -capacity tumblers to washer-extractors, as well as dryers. Its commercial machines are a popular brand for laundromats, apartment buildings, and

hotels A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

. As summarized by product review website Wirecutter in 2018, Speed Queen's top-loader washing machines have a reputation for being "wasteful ndineffective", requiring much more energy and water than modern front-loading washers, however on the other hand are regarded as "exceptionally durable and repairable", with fans also praising their ability to thoroughly clean heavily soiled work clothes. A 2018 design change, revealed as the TR7, introduced what the company described as a "radically different" washing mechanism, abandoning the separate movement of

agitator Agitator may refer to: Politics *A person who carries out political agitation; see agitation *A member of the Agitators, political movement and elected representatives of soldiers during the English Civil War * Levellers, also called Agitators ...

and tub for which Speed Queen laundry machines had previously been known. The design faced criticism, receiving only a 4.2 rating from CNET, who described the design as that it "doesn't clean nearly enough to recommend it to everyone." It also received a "poor" rating by Consumer Reports (CR) for cleaning clothes—the only washer tested by CR to receive such a rating. On the "heavy cycle" CR said the cleaning rating would be "fair". In 2019, Speed Queen effectively reverted to the separate agitator and tub with the release of the TC5.

History

The company was founded in 1908 by Joe Barlow and John Seelig as Barlow & Seelig Manufacturing. They got their start by taking existing machine designs and improving them. In 1922, Speed Queen was the first company to introduce washers with nickel-copper tubs. The brand name "Speed Queen" was created in 1928. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, it switched production to support the war effort, manufacturing 20 mm

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

s, and parts for airplanes, tanks and guns. Later, it was sold to

McGraw-Edison McGraw-Edison was an American manufacturer of electrical equipment. It was created in 1957 through a merger of McGraw Electric and Thomas A. Edison, Inc., and was in turn acquired by Cooper Industries in 1985. Today, the McGraw-Edison brand is us ...

Company (which also owned Eskimo fans and

Toastmaster Toastmaster is a general term, prevalent in the United States in the mid-20th century, referring to a person in charge of the proceedings of a public speaking event. The toastmaster is typically charged with organization of the event, arrangin ...

), and then to

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...

. In 1998,

Commercial Laundry sold the brand to Alliance Laundry Systems.

Speed Queen Ireland

Speed Queen Ireland provides cheap and easy self-service laundrettes around the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Home appliance brands Laundry businesses Manufacturing companies based in Wisconsin Ripon, Wisconsin Manufacturing companies established in 1908 1908 establishments in Wisconsin American companies established in 1908