Stop appliance genocide

[radiotron]

Originally Posted by tvtimeisfun

Hey Johnny you are still wet behind the ears you are just learnning about this old stuff you will catch up soon you are only 12 years old so do not rush your life you are a good kid keep on learnning.. Timothy

Tim I may not know the most in the world, but I know enough not to have chinese junk!

[Reece]

Top loaders are a proven product and pretty much trouble free and easy to fix. Water doesn't mind staying in a tub with an open top, but it likes to get out of a tub turned on its side. Front loaders like to grow mold and smell, too. Plus top loaders are more versatile: you can stop cycles and turn the dial to some other point, put in a heavy soaked rug and just run the spin cycle, etc. You're not faced with a locked door. Give me a top loader with a mechanical timer and as little electronics as possible.

[AUdubon5425]

Originally Posted by Reece

Top loaders are a proven product and pretty much trouble free and easy to fix. Water doesn't mind staying in a tub with an open top, but it likes to get out of a tub turned on its side. Front loaders like to grow mold and smell, too. Plus top loaders are more versatile: you can stop cycles and turn the dial to some other point, put in a heavy soaked rug and just run the spin cycle, etc. You're not faced with a locked door. Give me a top loader with a mechanical timer and as little electronics as possible.

You know, years ago we lived in a townhouse and had a stacked White-Westinghouse washer & dryer. The washer was a front loader with a little round window in the rectangular door. It was a 1980 or 81 model and we never had a problem with gaskets, mold, etc. It was about 13 years old when we moved from there. So I wonder why the newer machines have these issues when the front-loader is far from a new concept.

[CoogarXR]

I have a few random thoughts on this topic:

Dehumidifiers:
I bought an 80s model (I forget the brand) for a rental house I had. I sold the rental, and moved the dehumidifier over to the basement at my house. An opportunity came to upgrade to a new "energy star" model, so I bought it. That thing did half as good, and my electric bill went up $40! Good thing I kept the ol' 80s model...

Fridges:
At my day job, at the recycler, I see a few fridges. Most of the new ones have the coils in the side walls! If you get a slight dent in the side wall, it kinks the line, and it's dead. They are sealed with spray foam, so there's no way to fix them.

Older Plasma TVs:
My 50" 1998 Pioneer Plasma is rated at 640w I believe, heh. I never put a meter on it though. Oh well, that's one luxury I will continue to pay to run. What's cheaper, a TV that lasts, or a cheap TV that I have to buy 5 times? Plus, it keeps my TV room toasty in the winter. It sees daily action, but not crazy amounts of hours.

AC Units:
I have an ancient GoldStar unit in my garage. It has no front on it, so I don't know anything about it. I keep the fins clean, and it keeps the shop cool. No fancy thermostats, just a two big knobs, "off, cool, fan" and "low,med,high" lol. At the recycler I see many of the rolling portable AC units junked for leaks and bad exhaust motors. Those things are crazy expensive and total crap.

Light bulbs:
I do use the CFL bulbs. Only the yellow-ish ones, I hate the blue-ish ones. I don't really have common the longevity problems. I think I have had one in the house burn out in 5 years. Now, the one in the porch light burns out all the time, but I bet the cold weather kills it. I do also like the LED floodlights. I use them for my ebay picture booth, and in a billiard-style light that hangs over my workbench. Nice white light with no heat.

[tvtimeisfun]

Because new stuff is junk that is why there are so many issues with things not enough pride in the factories and employees it is all about the money...Timothy

[radiotvnut]

My uncle had an old Westinghouse front load washer that was probably no newer than the early '60's. It finally took a dump in the early '90's and was replaced by a Roper top load model. His dryer was a GE gas model that was probably as old as the washer. The dryer was still working when he died in '94.

[holmesuser01]

Those old Westinghouse front loaders were not that great, but they were eons better than the front loaders out there, today. I worked on a bunch of the front loaders built in the 1970's... I just installed a new spin belt for a friend, and had to special order it.... and it continues to wash perfectly. I always tell my friend that owns this that at anytime, something can go wrong that can't be replaced, and this will be the end of it.

I, myself, had a pair of early 1980's Maytag machines... the last of the really good ones, that ran perfectly, until I traded them for a pair of 1969 Whirlpools.. Nice avocado paint job... actually matches the laundry room now. I replaced the top tub seal, the pump, the drive belt, and the water inlet valve when I got these machines in 2006. Working perfectly every day. They came from the condo of a little old lady that rarely even used them. I am a firm believer of recycling, and not adding to the destruction of old appliances. I've got a 1958 Fridgidare in my garage... unplugged, with the door propped open, that I know will work just fine when I move it into the new house. I run it about once a month for an hour or two, just to lubricate the refrigeration system. It runs just fine. I recently found a NOS thermostat on eGroan that will cure all the problems it had when I got it.

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

I can no longer remain silent about this heinous baloney.
Our classic 50's refrigerators are being slandered in a most despicable way.
First it was the compact fluorescent lamps, now its refrigerators.

Yes i know my friend.... EVERYTHING IS BEING REPLACED WITH CHEAP GARBAGE AND ITS SAD!!!!!

People are to blame for this,NOT ENOUGH TO STAND UP AND DEMAND BETTER QUALITY (Like what we used to have)

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Yes i know my friend.... EVERYTHING IS BEING REPLACED WITH CHEAP GARBAGE AND ITS SAD!!!!!

People are to blame for this,NOT ENOUGH TO STAND UP AND DEMAND BETTER QUALITY (Like what we used to have)

Problem is, people still want to pay the same now that they paid then for appliances. That old Frigidaire we had in the '50s when I was a kid would cost thousands today, and you'd still have to manually defrost it.

[Kamakiri]

And that's exactly it. This is why some people complain that McDonalds food is crap. Well, if you want a char broiled burger served on artisan bread with a nice slice of fresh tomato, then go pay more than 99 cents. Everything is made to a price point.

The American factory worker won't go for slave labor wages, and Ed, you've nailed it.....we can't make and sell products like they once made and expect people to have the money to buy them, or even want to pay that much.

The cheapest RCA color TV you could get in 1960 was $495.00, which translates to $3707.12 in 2011 dollars. By the same token, a flat panel TV that costs say $500 now, would have cost just $66.76 in 1960 dollars! How bout them apples!

It's no wonder these things are around long past their usable lifespans. It was a capital investment.

[CoogarXR]

Yeah, people say "they don't make them like they used to" (applied to any item). But we also don't pay like they used to. I remember my dad buying his first Mitsubishi Stereo 20" TV. It was almost $900 if I remember right, in the early 80s. $900 now will fill your wall with TV. Yeah, it will blow up (and that mitsubishi is still running today, at my mother-in-law's house, hehe).

But that's the deal. The people have spoken. Instant gratification, screw what tomorrow brings. They want it big, loud, and NOW! Oh yeah, and cheap. People don't care. I work at a recycler, I see it all day long. People dumping TVs, and saying "This one gave me 3 years, that's not too bad!"... I guess if you spent $3000 on a TV that lasts 30 years, or 10 $300 TVs that last 3 years, it all washes out, save for the hassle factor.

[bgadow]

Yes, this is precisely the problem. The price of bottom-of-the-line major appliances hasn't really budged in decades, along with many other goods. At the grocery store they hold the price down by making the container smaller but you can't get by with a smaller washing machine...

One of the problems I'm facing in my small business is that cash customers expect things to cost what they did 10, 20, even 30 years ago. I'd love to accomodate them but the cost of labor/overhead makes it impossible. Brutal competition (all of us in my line of work are well below capacity, and hungry) means that pricing is cutthroat, so none of us are making a decent profit. One shop has apparently decided to just maximize profits on the work they do, never mind if they lose a good percentage of the work. In the last week I've pulled in three jobs that they bid w-a-a-a-y high, and I was still able to make a decent profit in each case. One example, car needed a blower motor resistor. $25 part, my markup is about $10, takes 2 minutes to install, I didn't even charge her labor since she is a good customer. She had just come from that other shop that wanted to charge her over $300 for the same exact job, including a $100 "diagnostic charge".

Sorry, getting off topic here...

[Reece]

Kamakiri wrote: The cheapest RCA color TV you could get in 1960 was $495.00, which translates to $3707.12 in 2011 dollars.

No wonder it took me forever to save up the $34.19 for my first Heathkit!

[radiotvnut]

I just saw an ad on TV, from one of the local TV/appliance dealers, advertising a 32" TV for $229. I'm sure these idiots around here will flock down there to buy one of those stellar TV's. They don't think about the fact that it will likely be in the dump in two years (or less). All they are thinking about is that they can buy a new, decent sized, TV for a low price. Heck, I remember when 19" color TV's with rotary tuners cost more than that; and, many of those sets are still going (30+ years later).

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I just saw an ad on TV, from one of the local TV/appliance dealers, advertising a 32" TV for $229. I'm sure these idiots around here will flock down there to buy one of those stellar TV's. They don't think about the fact that it will likely be in the dump in two years (or less).

Is that a hard and fast rule, or just something that was said once and repeated so often that it is now darn nearly universally believed as fact? I've seen the prices on 50-inch-plus flat screens, and it does not seem right to me in the least that these sets will fail in two years or so -- after the owner has paid such a high price; same for smaller TVs. Plus, I'm not crazy about the fact that my own Insignia 19" flat screen, bought new in August 2011, may and likely will fail the day after the warranty expires. Are these sets intentionally made to fail after only two years? Do the manufacturers put some kind of timer in the set that causes the unit to become unusable after 730 days or after the warranty runs out? (I don't believe so, since Best Buy does offer an optional four-year warranty extension which goes into effect the moment the original warranty expires; I didn't buy the extended warranty for my flat screen, but I did get it for my Blu-ray player and my flat-screen computer monitor. Go figure. )

What is so darned special about this two-year failure estimate for flat screens, and who came up with that figure in the first place? As I said in a post to Insignia's flat-screen TV forum some time ago, if the makers of flat screens don't start turning out sets that last longer, a lot longer, than the warranty or two years (!), whichever comes first, a lot of these offshore manufacturers and the retailers that sell their TVs are going to find themselves out of business before too long. Insignia is a house brand for televisions and audio/video gear sold by Best Buy, and as such the longevity of these products reflects directly on BB's reputation. Again, if many more of these Insignia TVs are returned to the stores with chassis problems or broken panels, etc., Best Buy may well find itself out of business entirely before too much longer. I am not actually expecting my set to go up in smoke the next time I watch it (or any time soon, for that matter), of course, but this business of almost any flat screen developing problems within a short (sometimes very short) period of time makes me wonder just how long my TV will last before it develops a serious repair problem and will have to be replaced. I will use my 12-year-old RCA CTC185 19" table set with a cable box if this happens, so I won't be without TV, but still I am very disappointed that flat screens -- especially the big 60-70" sets that carry $1k+ price tags -- are made to be discarded after they fail within two years (!), if the failure occurs after the warranty. Don't these stores or the offshore manufacturers of the TVs realize or care that most people cannot afford to buy a new television every two years or less? I have read on other FP TV makers' message boards that some people are now without television since their flat screens went bad, and these people discarded or otherwise got rid of the old CRT set when the FP set arrived. This cannot be good (in fact, it could be disastrous) for TV networks and their affiliates, either, since every lost viewer works out to so many lost ratings points; if a station or network loses enough of its viewers, the programs' ratings will suffer, and in the case of local TV stations, particularly those in smaller cities, the stations' very existence could be in jeopardy as well.