My parents built a Medallion home in about 1959 or so, in west Texas. All electric. After the first real cold spell, a gas heater was added. I remember we actually had one of those gold medallions.
We really need the innovators from that time again today, who make it their goal to make homes affordable for younger people. As a society we no longer have that vision.
A fully electric home with baseboard heat is a nightmare. As the power meter spins off the wall like a frisbee you get to look forward to electric bills that cost more than your mortgage. I'll stick with natural gas for my furnace, hot water tank, stove and dryer.
Guys, please appreciate these modern innovations in your homes today! I remember being a kid in Mexico and we had to heat up water and bathe in one of those big metal tubs. Then I came over to America and started seeing all the new modern appliances and such. Having those humble beginnings really makes me appreciate it all.
In 1962 my parents bought a brand new "Medallion" home. Complete with intercom & electric rotisserie in the backyard! 1800+ sq ft 3 bdrm 2 bath w/ attached 2 car garage in Orange County California $29.9K! Sold (complete with the Medallion) in 1984 for $225K. That same house today is well over $750,00.00! 🤦♀️🤷♀️
It's called "Planned Obsolescence". Everything is made so that it will wear out in a predictable period of time. It is intentional. If everything lasted forever then a business would go OUT of business. The light bulb is a good example of this. When first invented they could last 50 or more years. L.B. companies got together and agreed to make their bulbs with a cheaper material.
I'm still drooling over that gorgeous home at 16:52. My kind of Mid Century Modern dream dwelling. I know that many people like to dismiss Modernism as "cold". That's not my emotional response. I enjoy the clean-lined, pastel-colored cheerfulness of the modernist aesthetic. It's bright and optimistic and in its own way appropriate and authentic for the age of technology we live in.
My 1960 ranch home is a medallion home! We have exactly that medallion. It was mounted on the exterior kitchen door when we bought the home back in 2003. And sure enough, it has at least four outlets in every room and 220V circuits to the oven and dryer. Granted, most of the house has non-grounded outlets, so hopefully we won't get zapped. However, the fuse box (yep, FUSES) was apparently inadequate when the previous owners wanted to remodel the kitchen a bit in the late 70's, so the kitchen, living room, and add-on sunroom are on circuits form a breaker box outside, while everything else runs to the fuse box. Plenty of separate circuits. Our heat pump outside looks to be added maybe in that same 1970's time frame. But we've never had a single issue with our wiring. I swapped out all the 2 prong outlets for 3 prong ones, code be damned. :-)
Mostly every home in our neighborhood has that medallion symbol on the driveways! Ours is also a 1960 home. I'll be damned if only we got to see how it used to look before the previous owner remodeled the whole house. Funny enough, we knew ours had that symbol, since the fuse box still has it's original cover with a sticker of the medallion. Until then I can only imagine buying a house like ours someday...
in the 1960 national electrical code " all outlet boxes had to be grounded", do not let those two prong / polarized outlets fool you, the box is grounded ,so when you replaced the receptacles, the 6-32 screws picked up the ground, you can verify this by getting a "RECEPTCAL TESTER"( PLUGS INTO THE OUTLET),and it checks for ground and polarity!!!.today you have to install a grounding/ bonding jumper wire to the outlet and the box. one thing that you can also do is, install a "GFCI" outlet that is the first outlet box in that branch circuit, it will protect all of the outlets down stream from that first outlet, the problem is you would have to take the time to find the lead outlet receptacle!!!!
WOW! That’s a lot of electric lighting! I grew up in the late 60s , 70s I remember the energy crisis and was taught to turn the lights off when you left a room and try to get buy with as lit light as possible to save energy and keep the cost down.....I am still that way of thinking.....lol
My parents grew up in the 60s and raised us kids during the 90s, now I know who to blame for having to switch lights off to keep the electric bill down. Thanks, Medallion homes lol
The pedal that pops open the refrigerator door was an idea already over 30 years old when this film was new. It goes all the way back to the famous 1920's G.E. "Monitor Top" refrigerator. With all of the WiFi enabled uselessness seen on today's fridges, why is a genuinely useful feature like that pedal, no longer used?
GE, GM Frigidaire, and Speed Queen had the same feature on their dryers with the foot petal to open the door up. Reason why they don’t offer a such feature is literally everyone falls for all the technology crap which is all style and no substance and people always fall for the touchscreen nonsense as well. I actually am a vintage appliance enthusiast who is 22 and I have a few appliances in my fleet which are mainly vintage washers and dryers and they too have features that are more useful and prime example is my 1963 RCA Whirlpool Imperial Mark XII washer has a lock pin timer and how it works is you selects a cycle, pull the timer known out, turn it until it stops and that’s all there is to it. Modern appliances are a joke compared to what they used to build back in the 50’s 60’s and early 70’s.
@@seana806 And today most companies are are fighting against the 'right of repair' Good luck finding a part for that Wifi Bluetooth enabled refrigerator today. If it was made after 2008...not happening. BUT there's still THOUSANDS of "Monitor Top" fridges and Maytag wringer washers STILL rolling on.
@@jamesslick4790 it’s a combination of cheap and careless consumers, corporate greed, and too much government intervention that’s ruined all cars and appliances over the years. Cars have gotten so complex to the point where you can’t really do simple things anymore and some cars need to have the computer reprogrammed when you replace the battery which is our ridiculousness. No wonder why there’s a computer chip shortage since everybody needs a computer in every damned thing you can think of these days. I may be 22 but I’d perfectly be happy with a car from the 60’s that doesn’t have all the technology crap in it, and is easy to fix when something needs fixing or adjustments done to it.
@@seana806 Can't put tags on my CA car because it won't smog until you drive it 150 miles to reset the computer. I disconnect the battery when I leave for the summer.
Mr. Hunter , Exactly! I keep saying women are still doing the same job we've always done. Nobody's supposed to acknowledge it, that's all. We're supposed to ridicule those old timey wives. (Yes, I know men work hard too, but I am speaking from a woman's perspective.)
And electricity VS gas can be wildly different in cost depending on where you live. In Pittsburgh 90 percent (or more) of cooking and heating is by Natural gas. If you have electric heating here, Your electric bill would be as high as rent!
I think that came from the idea of nuclear- generated electricity being "too cheap to meter". Before the reality of the externalities of nuclear power were widely known.
So fun to watch this. My parents home was built in 1967 and the builder didn't even insulate the walls. This was in a cold snowy climate. The energy crisis came in the 70s.
holy shit, that medallion is on my doorbell. i couldn't figure out what it meanr for the longest time. and i don't ever remember my mother wearing a crinoline when did housework. she DID play "sgt pepper" on the stereo while did though.
Not a single grounded outlet in sight, until they got to the "special" plug for the air conditioner. So a medallion home would need a new electrical system to be up to today's codes.
NEC didn't require grounding in residential houses until 1961. Looks like they just missed that. I also like how everything is wired with bx cable, not that crappy fishpaper romex everyone used back then.
@@joshjones3227 Starting in '66 aluminum wiring replaced copper in many homes. Some electricians refuse to do work in a house with any aluminum wiring.
My dad built these homes. A 2 bdrm. rambler went for $12,500 and a three bdrm. for $14,500. They were built on 1/2 acre when houses were built 4 to the acre at that time. Those homes are still around and are going for around $270,000.
My next door neighbor’s house, built in 1961, has this electric medallion on their house. My parent’s house, now my house, was built the next year in 1962, but we didn’t get an electric medallion for some reason.
Give me a gas cook top, dryer, furnace and water heater, any day of the week. At least with a gas cook top and water heater if your power goes out, you can still cook and have hot water.
Katy Bauer And how often does the power go out for a long time? Maybe once or twice a year? Not really worth using an outdated and less safe heating source.
MostlyPonies, my power went out for 5 days last year, and I was very happy to be able to take a warm shower and cook. I would like to see your statistics on gas being an outdated and less safe heating source. Gas heating is certainly less expensive than electric.
Amen to that, give me gas appliances and heating all day long! When I was house hunting years ago I wouldn't even look at a place without gas service, a total non-starter. Oil heat is the WORST - it stinks, it needs a tuneup every year and it breaks down when you need it the most. Electric dryers, heating and ranges cost a fortune to run compared to gas. No thanks!
@@MostlyPonies1 My electricity goes out multiple times a year. either by some idiot driver takes out a pole, or storms in late spring and summer, OTOH in my entire life (50+ years) we've NEVER lost natural gas service.
The led. Light is out on grandpa's whirlpool refrigerator. I have to order him a new one tomorrow. The main light is 214.00 dollars! They tell me I need to replace all three. Haven't priced the other two yet. Thanks Whirlpool!!!!!
I loved my mom's Frigidaire refrigerator after we remodeled our house in 1962. So sleek, so pretty, and had volumes of space for her groceries regardless of what mom bought at the grocery store. Miss that Frigidaire. So much better quality of product than what is available to day. Sad.
rgoidel that frigidaire machine probably cost whoever bought it at least a months wages if not more back in 1962. A fridge today can be bought for less than a days wages. Consumers have demanded cheaper and cheaper appliances, this has co e at the expense of quality.
@@spencerwilton5831 a low end standard size refrigerator costs about $450.00, A post tax (net) hourly wage of nearly $60 an hour is required to make that in an 8 hour day. And someone making about $110,000.00 a year is unlikely to buy a low end model, So no, no one is buying refrigerators on one day's pay.
@@jamesslick4790 I don't think anyone thinks about buying a fridge on a day's wage. Heck, going with your logic, someone making $15 an hour only needs to work 30 hours to afford a $450 fridge- that's less that a week! Most people save up or use credit- just like we've been doing since "way back when."
@@LiLi-or2gm Tell that to "Spencer Wilton", (see above in the comments) That's who I was responding to. He brought up fridge buying for less than "a day's wage". 🤔 I just "ran the numbers". 🤭
This is mind blowing because I watch abandoned house videos and see a lot these vintage things wore out and a lot their original owners more than likely dead. I seen a lot of them wall light switches with little round buttons and thought that looks really neat why don't they still make them. They need to bring back these vintage items because things were made better back then. How many things do we have in are homes that will still be working 59 years from now.?
David Brown , I am sure there was a reason they replaced those button switches, but you can still buy that type today. I saw that on Ask This Old House.
Built Medallion condos near us about 1960. Gas had increased in cost about that time so electric heating was "in." Coal-fired plants kept electricity pretty cheap until the greenies started screaming for windmills, etc. But, unless you were around much before 1960 (scrubbers invented) you have have no clue what air pollution is (was).
@@bigred9428 It already is. Coal plants can burn clean with added exhaust measures but that doesn't work for those who want us to lose access to power and productivity while pretending they care about the environment (and fly around in their private jets at the same time).
My grandparents built their house in 1959, was state of the art and one of the nicest homes in the neighborhood. Silly me upgraded the house years ago before selling and removed all the original light fixtures since the wiring was starting to corrode. We had a big saucer like 4 bulb chandelier in the dining room that you could pull down towards the table and push back up. Wish I’d rewired it now looking back. House is over 60 years old now and on it’s 3rd owners. Still holding up to this day. good quality construction
Electric heating only really caught on where power was cheap. The Tennessee Valley Authority made electric power affordable in that region with its subsidies, but elsewhere not really. Even to this day, dishwashers aren't used nearly as much as people think. Nobody would intentionally buy one, they only took off after builders installed them with the house. In fact, some stuff has backslid, with more and more people cooking outdoors than ever. And young people experiment a lot more with food preservation and craft production like with beer.
puppy droolsalot Guess you have crappy dishwashers in the US! European ones are almost silent, and wash brilliantly using less water and less energy than doing the same quantity of washing up by hand. It's the same with our washing machines. I don't understand how American appliances are still so bad.
@@spencerwilton5831 They aren't. Only the super cheap appliances are bad. I have a pretty nice dishwasher that is very efficient. Though I wish I had a gas cook top and gas dryer.
@@spencerwilton5831 , Yeah, yeah, yeah, we stink, Europe's great...geez, what's your problem? BTW, we don't make the appliances anymore, that's why they suck.
All of the houses in our development in Las Vegas were built from 1962-1965 and they all had medallions embedded in the sidewalk saying "This is a General Electric all electric home"
+pennellkay My Mom & Dad's 1950s house was heated by baseboard boiler water and we all loved it too. Mom & Dad hated forced air heat with that "...noisy, cold air always blowing on you and drying out the room." I still remember the gentle crinkling sound of the metal expanding when the water first ran through.
@@kenbob1071 Yes, I'll never forget the gurgling noise, the "tink tink" of the fins and the slightly cooked dust smell I noticed when we moved in for the fall of 1966 (11 years after the house was built). Our Tuttle&Bailey radiators had big pipes and thick fins, all in series with taps along the way for the convectors in the upstairs bedrooms. Most of the later systems, with smaller pipes and thinner fins, were quieter.
Interesting .... looks like the switches are low voltage running a relay module. I have worked on this in one house ... I think it was built in the 50's. I think the idea was safety (low voltage at the switch) plus the ease of small "non code" (as it is below 50 volts) wiring for the switches. Since the parts are no longer available, I rewired once circuit at at time as they went bad.
I love those old fridges with the turning shelves, the special butter compartments, all those things have disappeared on the modern fridge. What a shame! Some fridges had removable compartments in the door for vegetables and fruit. I wish they would implement those "good" things again in the fridges of today! I know.... but dreaming is allowed isn't it? 😊
i really feel kitchen appliances have improved in efficiency but not convenience. They have really gone downhill. I want an old GE electric range with the built in pressure cooker, warmer, storage drawers and dual oven. Its sad how little they have on them now. Its 4 burners , single oven and a bottom drawer. How boring and lacking.
My fridge has most of that, except the lazy-suzan. I've heard other people make that comment and I can't figure out where all these no-frills refrigerators are coming from. All the ones I remember (not expensive ones, just the usual freezer-on-top) had a bunch of "crisper" drawers and special compartments.
In 1968 after my folks bought their first home (after more than 20 years of marriage) we had to keep up a sign for a while that said "Another Medallion Home". But we didn't have those nifty lights and we certainly never had any air conditioning. The craziest thing was having the electric heat in the ceiling. My dad could never figure that one out: Heat always rises so why have the heat source already at the highest point? [ A number of decades later, after my dad had already died, my mom converted to natural gas. ]
My grandmother's 1969 Medallion Home had that electrical ceiling heat and it works quite well, the rooms would get nice and toasty. Don't forget that these homes were well insulated.
clemsonbloke They were never well insulated. Well, maybe by American standards, which have always been dismal. It's impossible to put sufficient insulation in walls when your houses are built the same way Europeans build garden sheds- from 2x4 and nails.
Not really. It was downright stupid to put the heating in the ceiling. So much waste, all the cold spots (like under tables), and stratification (warm air stays up next to the ceiling; cold air stays down against the floor). There were no smoke alarms or forced-entry alarms; no motion detectors or baby monitors. I grew up through the 50's and 60's and yes, some things were simpler, but I much prefer today's home technology!
@@LiLi-or2gm My grandmother's 1969 Medallion Home had that electrical ceiling heat and it works quite well, the rooms would get nice and toasty. Don't forget that these homes were well insulated.
The Code used to require one duplex outlet per wall. No GFI's. Oh, and the Medallion home comes with an $1,800/month electric bill lol. Good 'ol incandescent bulbs too! The future passed the 60's up pretty quickly.
O que era modernidade no passado, hoje é quase um projeto de museu. Mas, no começo dos anos 60 era algo memorável e praticamente invejado por todas as pessoas. 🇧🇷
Yes friends electricity will give you every convenience. Just as long as you don't live in California, home of the rolling blackouts that want everyone plugging in their car to an already overworked power grid.
there was two levels of medallion homes that were built in the late 1950's- mid 1960's in my area( cincinnati ohio). the" SILVER MEDALLION HOME"( medallion installed in the address numbers- lighted) came with a 100 amp main service( 100 amp fused pull- out/ main panel). the " GOLD MEDALLION HOME" came with a 150 amp service( 150 amp fused disconnect switch)
I've seen a few places with resistance heating in the ceiling, some with the nickle film instead of wires. It's always sort of a nightmare, since you don't know how much of that expensive heat is going up into the attic and out the vents, or how long it will be before the wiring fails and starts to arc in a dry attic. It was a slick idea, but not a good one.
Lol, yeah! I thought it was a strange place to put heating too. I mean, wouldn't the floor be a better place? I know such heating is still put under tiles, which works great. Hot air vents coming up under the floor are still a valid thing. Wonder if they thought of that idea then too? The ceiling is just strange, and might only kinda work if there were rooms above it to heat, but even then,,it seems super dodgy, and a great way to start a fire. I love watching how things were back in this time....but some of the way they did things is a little scary, lol!
@@TheMurlocKeeper My mom and dads house built in 1959 had it. It was very nice radiant heat. Each room had its own thermostat. So you could close the door to a room that was not in use, and turn the temp way down. It very clean no air moving around, so little dust was made. It last for ever with no maintence.
I can say that " in todays standards, the baseboard heating system is an absolute energy hog" the low voltage lighting systems were a novel idea, with line voltage lighting contactors. you cannot get parts for that "STUFF" anymore!!!!. also ,if you have a "BULLDOG, or a FEDERAL PACIFIC" panel "REPLACE IT" those breakers are "THERMAL TRIP" only, and will not trip on a short circuit ,until the breaker heats up .if you you have a square "D" panel with "Q.O." breakers, all is good under the hood, those breakers have magnetic/ thermal trip sensors and will open up on a short circuit/overload. ( Q.O. stands for "quick open" ,also the "D" in square D, stands for the company's original name " THE DETROIT FUSE COMPANY"
@@gregoryclemen1870 What exactly was the logic behind a low-voltage lighting system? Slightly better lighting efficiency and bulb life made possible by thicker filaments for low voltages?
The home I grew up in never had "this medallion" shown at 7:08. Yet we had comfy air conditioning and heat, perfectly fine lighting, a fridge full of food, and all the TV and vacuum cleaners we needed. Were we, like, cheating or something?
I have that medallion on my house. It was built in 64, long before my time. Must have been retrofitted though, gas furnace and water heater. Wish I could go to all electric. Only 100 amp service
No, you really don't, lol! Can you imagine a world without internet? I would be so lost without it! And I'd have to go outside more, and possibly cook more, instead of ordering from Uber Eats. And all that wonderful internet shopping....gone! It would be an interesting time to visit, but not to stay....
This pretty much sums up what Britain *thought* it was getting in the 80s. There was a huge craze for electrically fired homes throughout the decade, and I happen to live in one such property... Fast forward 30 years - To an era of overdemand, mass nuclear decommissioning, and "95% of the money in 5% of the populations hands" economics, and the fallacies - And running costs - Of the "All electric" home become all too clear... :-o The moral of this story: Even if you think you'll never need one, consider gas heating and a wood burning stove...And keep some fuel to hand for emergencies! :-)
D Dragon It was earlier than that. I had friends who lived in sixties and seventies built flats that were all electric. Many local authorities went all electric when building council accommodation as early as the fifties. Even at the time, people complained about the expense of running them. I know of one person who moved into quite a smart sixties house and couldn't understand why the electricity bill was so enormous all year round. Eventually he discovered he had an electrically heated driveway, and it had been switched on for months.
All in all, I do think that the appeal was that it was modern. A lot of houses still had old 1930s appliances and coal stoves and heating, so when young couples wanted to upgrade, electric seemed so clean and modern, they thought it was wonderful.
In the mid-1960s, I remember the "All Electric Gold Medallion" homes were all the rage in the media. In my smallish childhood So. Cal. town, there were a few. I remember my parents saying "Those are too expensive." I think even then, it was a way for the (D) people to "Virtue Signal." The 60s equivalent of driving a Prius.
Do you wonder why you never see a heated ceiling today? 1 heat goes up not down 2 the ceiling get hot then cold will make it all fall in at some point.
I don't know why they don't make led consoles. You still have to buiy something to put the tv on, and a soundbar and speakers if you want to hear it. Why not get an all in one?
@@bigred9428 ive said the exact thing so many times now! I think the problem is people arent willing to spend money on something nice when they'll just get a new one in a couple years when it breaks anyway
Unfortunately at this time, when they had fantastic design and excellent building materials available; most of the houses are anything but and are too small also.
I must be mad or crazy said my contractor ! Love these "modern home" films of the late 50's and early 60's. Grew up in a Medallion home built in 1962 for 13k. Mom and Dad were very proud and appreciative of all the 150 amps of "power" it had to make the 1800 sq ft comfortable for living in the cold northeast . If they could only see the "power" my house has today they would be dumbfounded. I love electric power, and plenty of it, so I went all out and have a total of 800 amps. 2 separate services of 400 amps each. One service for the main house, one service for the guesthouse which feeds the detached finished garage with 200 amps. I also wanted 3 phase power which the local utility is unable to provide so I created my own 3 phase power by adding a converter system which is comprised of a 25 hp electric "donkey or idler" motor which creates the third leg and then a 30 KVH step up transformer. This set up gives me the 480 volt 3 phase to power a 10 ton AC. Instead of needing over a 100 amps dedicated to run 2 separate 5 ton units in the main house I now need only 25 amps to get 120,000 btu's of cooling power and save a bunch on electric. I do have a solar panel system which provides about 500 $ worth of power monthly. My folks couldn't imagine that modern day houses would have big screen tv, computer and stereo system in every bedroom and children who only know how to turn a light switch on but are unaware that there is also an off setting. It's hard for me to imagine only having a 200 amp service. I think back to a house I once owned back in the 90's that was built in 1905 that still had cloth coated wire and had a service panel with heavy copper breakers and a slate panel, no fuses !. It was 100 amps and the house was 6000 sq ft tudor...what a nightmare it was to update it drilling through nearly petrified oak beams( no pine used when built, only hardwoods) and real stone foundation and first floor . If I ever build another house it will definitely have a complete integrated solar roof from Elon's company. Btw...The wife in her beautiful housedress was gorgeous and could probably out-cook and out-mother, and out-ovulate any wet behind the ears SJW university grad "birthing person" of today's generation. Houses may have improved and gotten more costly in today's era... but the women have significantly degraded in quality, durability, style and are now considered "cheap" and "throw-away"...they just don't make 'em like they used to !!
@@tedlahm5740 Yes Ted, you hit the nail on the head. It's a downright shame. I've been telling my sons that if they want a wife with the home-making and parenting skills and values of a 1950's woman they better start looking at Eastern European and or Asian ladies raised and still living in their home country. I've been advising them avoid like the plague any woman who has been indoctrinated in an American university and if she took any sociology classes then run, run fast and don't look back !
