Frances Gabe invented a home that cleans itself. For wet cleaning, you need to press two buttons, clothes are washed and dried in the wardrobe, and the dishes are washed on the kitchen shelves.
Every woman knows that housework is the most thankless task. It takes a lot of time, and the result is not visible the next day. The worst thing in this regard is the situation with cleaning: if there is a child in the house, then you can literally clean it up endlessly. To solve this problem, you can buy a whole lot of useful gadgets such as a dishwasher and robot vacuum cleaner. Or you can invent a smart home that will solve all these problems for you. This is what Frances Gabe did back in 1984. She designed and built a house that cleans itself away with the push of a few buttons.
Genius from hopelessness
Francis Gabe has been interested in physics and mechanics since childhood. The girl graduated from the Polytechnic College as an external student and dreamed of getting a job related to invention. However, all plans were ruined by love: Francis got married, but her husband turned out to be a uniform lazy and a failure. From the age of 17, she had to become the main earner in the family, because her husband could not find a suitable job for himself. Pregnancy and children did not change anything: not only did the husband not earn a dime, he also did not want to do the housework, considering it an "unmanly affair"
Frances worked, and after work she ran home and started cleaning. The tension accumulated until it reached its climax. One day, one of the children splashed jam on the kitchen wall, and the woman desperately grabbed a garden hose and washed off the stain with a rush of water. This gave her the idea that the whole house could be cleaned in the same way. The flywheel spun, and Frances began to figure out how to bring her idea to life.
Cleaning can feel like a fire
It looked like a smart home Francis Gabe / photo novate.ru
Frances Gabe's work was related to the reconstruction of destroyed buildings, so she had access to modern technologies in construction. The first thing she thought about was how and where the “washing” apparatus could be installed. Fire safety systems came to the rescue. According to their principle, the woman installed sprinklers under the ceiling. By pressing the first button, a soapy solution entered the nozzles, then clean water flowed, and the last stage was drying with warm air.
These devices provided cleaning of the whole house / photo novate.ru
To prevent the house from being damaged by moisture, in each room, Francis equipped channels for water drainage that overlooked the street. At the same time, in the living room, water first flowed into the fireplace, washing it out of ash and soot. I also had to think about walls, furniture and floors. The woman covered the walls and floor with resin, and the furniture with waterproof varnish. Thanks to this, the water flowed from everywhere without causing harm. What cannot be protected from moisture (books, textiles, clothes and shoes), Francis hid in sealed boxes. The only thing that had to be completely abandoned was carpets and soft floor coverings.
Dishwasher on the shelf and wash in the wardrobe
To clean the house, you had to put on a raincoat and take an umbrella / photo novate.ru
After house reconstruction active cleaning phase it took Frances only 5 minutes. It was necessary to put on a raincoat, pick up an umbrella and press a few buttons. The house was shining with cleanliness, and its owner had more free time. The success of the invention pushed the woman to move on. By the same principle as washing the house, the woman designed the kitchen shelves: there were also nozzles that supplied water under pressure to the dirty dishes. She made the shelves themselves lattice so that the water immediately flows into the sink, and the plates and pans dry out faster.
All the inventions of Frances Gabe made according to her own drawings / photo novate.ru
Another unique invention of Francis was the wardrobe. It consisted of three compartments: in the first, things were washed and rinsed right on the hangers, in the second they were dried under the pressure of warm air, and in the third, clean and ready-to-go clothes hung. In addition, the woman herself ran a garbage chute from the kitchen to a garbage can on the street, and thus solved the eternal problem of “who takes out the garbage today”.
"Smart home" is still waiting in the wings
Frances willingly showed her house to journalists / photo novate.ru
Frances meticulously patented her developments. In total, the woman had 86 official patents for inventions. However, she did not plan to make money on it. Most of all, the inventor wanted the houses built according to her drawings to help people with disabilities, lonely pensioners and housewives. The woman was often invited to various shows and television programs, where she willingly talked about her unique home. However, for some reason, none of the large construction companies expressed a desire to launch the technology into mass production.
At 85, the inventor ended up in a hospice / photo novate.ru
Francis's "smart home" served her faithfully for almost 20 years, but in 2001 he was badly damaged by an earthquake. The woman at that time was already 86 years old: she had neither the strength nor the desire for reconstruction. At the initiative of relatives, the old woman was placed in a hospice for the elderly. There she died at the age of 101. To date, all patents and drawings of inventions are kept by the children of Francis. However, they are not going to re-implement them yet. Perhaps Francis Gabe will remain the Leonardo da Vinci of our time, and houses according to her drawings will begin to be built several hundred years later.
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