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On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 17:59:14 -0600, Alan Moorman@visi.com wrote:
>On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 17:46:09 GMT, "Rick Brandt"
><rickbrandt2@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Too_Many_Tools wrote:
>>> In my opinon...no.
>>>
>>> I intentionally try to have older appliances, vehicles, machines to
>>> lower repair costs and keep overall ownership cost to a minimum.
>>>
>>> Your thoughts?
>>>
>>> TMT
>>>
>>> Irreparable damageBy Bryce Baschuk
>>> THE WASHINGTON TIMES
>>> January 9, 2007
>>> Bill Jones, after 42 years, is finally closing the Procter Appliance
>>> Service shop in Silver Spring.
>>> "You cannot make a good salary to survive on the way you could years
>>> ago," said the 61-year-old owner of the oven, refrigerator and
>>> washer-dryer repair shop. "Everything has changed in the appliance
>>> business."
>>
>>This raises an apparent contradiction. Most people believe that appliances
were
>>built much better in the past than they are now and yet in the past a whole
>>industry survived on doing appliance repairs. Perhaps they only seemed to be
>>built better in the past because we kept them longer and the only reason we
kept
>>them longer is because we repaired them instead of replacing them. The
flipside
>>of that same coin is that perhaps today's appliances only seem to be inferior
>>because we replace them more often and the only reason we replace them more
>>often is because we do not repair them.
>>
>>
>>
>I think the main problem with today's appliances is that
>they are NOT made so that they can be repaired.
>
>Modules are stamped together, molded together, whatever and
>the little part that wears out cannot be replaced without
>replacing the whole module, which probably is not available,
>anyway, so the appliance gets tossed.
>
>I've an old toaster from the '40s or '50s. It is a
>mechanical thing, not electronic, and is made of individual
>parts that can be cleaned, oiled, and if you could get them,
>replaced as needed. When something like this stops working,
>less than an hour's work will set it up to run for another
>25 years!
>
>
>
>Alan
>
When I bought this house, there was a problem with the built-in oven
(an older Frigidaire). The (mechanical) clock (that I didn't need)
wouldn't keep time but made a loud UHH-UHH-UHH noise all the time. I
disconnected the wire to it, something I'd never have been able to
do with a modern oven.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent
force for atheism ever conceived." -- Isaac Asimov
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Re: Planned Obselescence....A Good Thing?
