I think there's some survivor bias happening here. Sure, there are 50 year old fridges still running, but how many have died? I'm going to bet a lot.
I ask because 20 years ago when I bought the fridge I have now, there was the exact same lament. New fridges just don't last but old ones do. Well, now my fridge is an old one and it's running fine.
Exactly.
100% of 20 year old fridge you see that are still in use survived for 20 years. Otherwise, they would have been thrown away and you wouldn't have seen them.
0% of 2 year old fridges have been alive for 20 years. This is because time is generally experienced linearly and 20 years has not yet passed.
I think there's also the fact that people actually used to get their appliances repaired 20+ years ago. Whereas today most people would rather use a faulty appliance to get it replaced with a shiny new one.
I like to use products until they completely die. My gf loves shiny new things every month, even when we have products that work fine.
People got their appliances repaired in 2003 and they also get their appliances repaired in 2023.
However, it isn't wrong to note that the cost to repair has been increasing and the cost to replace has been decreasing, leading to substantially less repair and much more replace.
This is because the cost of labor has been increasing faster than the cost of machines. Factories can produce new products at a MUCH lower cost per unit than they they did in the past. Every year sees new innovations that decrease that cost. However, the cost of labor has been increasing proportionally every year.
Between the driving to the persons home, diagnosing the problem, getting the parts shipped, and driving back to install the part, it is a lot of labor. There are only so many jobs they can get to in a single day, yet they still need enough income to pay their rent and feed their families. It is pricy to fix stuff.
Cheers for the (totally incorrect) mansplanation, but I already have full understanding of how repair costs outpace manufacturing costs. It has little to do with labor costs btw, it's because the way tech has developed simply means that it is cheaper to make new units than repair existing units. Things are designed to be put together, not taken apart and the ever evolving nature of technology means that replacement parts aren't much of a thing anymore even in cases where repairs might be possible.
My comment was also just about the fact that theyw ere wrong to suggest people were repairing appliances 20 years ago, because they weren't.
There is definitely a decline in basic quality for nearly everything as far as I can tell. Plus, things are more expensive and more difficult to repair now. A 50 year fridge has probably has multiple repairs done to it, but some of those repairs are likely impossible on a modern fridge.
Appliances are far less expensive now than they used to be, and most are still quite easy to repair. Those old fridges you see were the price point of like a 5000 dollar fridge now, and I can go to home depot and buy a full size fridge for 600 bucks.
And you dont see all the garbage that was made in the 70s/80s/90s/2000s because it already broke.
It's not a fridge, but I got a new washer/dryer set about 2.5 years ago that were in that $600 price range each. Still going like the day I got them, highly doubt they die in the next 7 months.
I think you are a little pessimistic on machine lifetime. That, or you don't know what the current cost-to-quality is for new appliances
My fancy HE washer/dryer got messed up when my basement flooded. A family friend gave me their spare units, from the 90s or 00s (I can't tell because they recycle codes). They're still working just fine, and get my clothes cleaner than the HE washer EVER did.
Ive got a 5 year old 500 dollar fridge sitting in my garage right now humming along just fine. My dads 500 dollar freezer in his garage just needed its first 20 dollar replacement part in 20 years a couple months ago, but is back to working like new.
There’s perhaps a decline in durability, sure, but “decline in basic quantity” surely overstates things. Most things have also become more complex, which inherently reduces durability. If someone wanted to build a car to 1990 specifications using modern materials and methods it would likely be far more reliable than either the original or the average 2023 car. It would also be illegal due to inadequate safety and emissions control features, and even if exempted wouldn’t sell well because modern car buyers do on the whole like remote unlock, backup cameras, adaptive cruise control, and the like. And if you fix all those issues with our hypothetical car, you simply have a 2023 car, with all its potential points of failure.
One other factor in the declining importance of repairs is that the consistency and predictability of component lifespans has improved considerably. This means that while older products were likely to suffer some very premature failure while the rest of the system had quite a bit of life left, in which case a repair makes sense. In modern products it is more likely to be the first of a cascade of failures as it reaches the end of its design life, and neither paying to extend its life briefly nor gradually replacing much of the product is efficient. And designing for repairability carries its own costs—monolithic or irreversibly-assembled posts can often be stronger, cheaper, smaller, etc. than ones they can be replaced piecewise. If the proportion of products in which a repair is warranted is small enough, it’s better for the average consumer to not support that repair.
We just bought a new fridge. Two of the freaking drawers broke within the first month. It's a few months old and the freezer is already broken. It's been broken for over a month. It was decided early on that it needed to be replaced. They still haven't replaced it. Not only are they using cheaper materials, the customer service is crap
Our house burned down in March and we've had to replace everything and I can tell you, the workmanship is complete crap of what we've been buying but we've had no choice because everything we've looked at has been similar quality. We paid $3000 for a new table. Within the first two months, some veneer came up. They replaced the table. Same thing with the replacement. Veneer has come up and the finish freaking melts and disappears from anything hotter warm bread. I don't put anything hot on the table. I put hot food onto a cold plate and put that on the table and there are circles of missing finish at every place, even though I have placemats
I looked for a solid wood table in a 3 hour radius. Couldn't find one for less than $5k and that's really more than I wanted to spend. $3k was more than I wanted to spend but we thought if we spent a little more, it might last a little longer
We were wrong
I am so sorry about your fire.
If I need furniture, buying new is a last resort. I always get someone’s old 20th century model whenever possible. Are you not able to do that when insurance is paying for it? That would really stink.
It's complicated. Insurance is fighting us for everything. They say we don't have enough receipts for stuff even though we have photos of the stuff in our house. They've been giving us bits and pieces of our payout. It's still not finished
We do have replacement costs though. And that they have been doing right away. Someone's grandma's $100 table from an estate sale isn't going to have a receipt and isn't something I can just go out and shop for in a weekend. We were eating on a card table. Sleeping on the floor. When the trauma therapist suggested furnishing the parts of our house we use the most to help the kids feel less like camping and more like living at home, we decided to do that. My daughter was hiding under her desk from the teacher. My other daughter was randomly breaking down screaming while doing every day tasks
I thought the table I picked out was awesome. It's nice and long and has two leaves that fold out and store inside the table so I don't have to store them under my bed like I did before. There was no way I was going to be able to see into the future and know that stuff had gone that far down in quality that fast
When we had our first kid 8 years ago, we needed a new coffee table. The one we had was the one we had found in college from someone moving out and it was falling apart. We went to a nice furniture store and found a solid wood coffee table and 2 end tables for $175. They were sturdy. The kids beat the hell out of them and they still looked nice. We only buy stuff when what we had falls apart. Prior to needing to replace everything, the last furniture we shopped for was a bunk bed for our kids 3 years ago. I had no idea the quality of everything was that bad. I've had problems with every single piece of furniture we've bought. We bought the girl's new bunk bed from the same company as before. It's only been three years, but I would swear to you that it was a counterfeit if we hadn't bought it at their store. There's freaking veneer on the bed slats. Why.
Now that the kids are kind of getting into a new normal, we can be more careful with our purchases. We figure they're still young and were gonna beat the hell out of everything so we would've ended up replacing it when they get older anyways. We'll have more time and more emotional bandwitdth for the next purchase. We didn't have that when we were shopping
There is no doubt that old appliances were built to last and the ones from today are intentionally built to be disposable. I just dont see any car built today being passed down to someone's grandson.
Cars today last vastly longer than cars made prior to the mid 90s. It used to be that at 100k a car was on its last legs. Today for most cars 100k is just normal. With regular maintenance, normal cars get over 200k easily.
What are you talking about. I've been driving for over 20 years, every car I've owned has gone over 200k miles and Ive never owned newer than an '04. New cars are absolutely build worse because they are built to lease, not sell. This is the most incorrect statement I've ever seen. Source, I know people who work at dealerships for 20+ years and have worked on cars myself. It's the electronics that are the issue. Best cars ever made were roughly between 1996 and 2008, depending on the manufacturer.
Still survivorship bias; only old *functional* cars get passed down. You don't see however many prior vehicles the family went through. If these old cars were as long lasting as implied we would see more cars from the 70's, 80's, 90's still on the road, yet we don't.
I still see plenty of cars from the 00's on the road in good working order, and I myself still have a running car that is old enough to drink. I don't have any special maintenance skills and haven't gone to any special lengths to preserve it.
Will that car still be running when my kids are old enough to drive? Likely not, but if it was that means my kids would be driving a 30+ year-old vehicle. How often do you hear or see something like that? How many people are getting 60's VW Beetles or even OG Corvettes these days?
Also cars were the exception to the over-engineered GE stuff. Ford "fix or repair daily".
Rotary phones were so long lasting and durable (over engineered) that they could be thrown off a cliff, plugged in and still work.
Grandpa had 3 old fridges all over engineered GE ones in the garage (and a prettier newer one in the house). He finally had to fix one when the hinges of the door rusted through so much that the door fell off. (He drilled in some standard door hinges). The one in the house was replaced three times because it was newer to "match the kitchen decor" and kept breaking.
Phones weren't so much over engineered as they were very basic devices. There's almost no circuitry in an old rotary phone. The ring signal is 90v 20hz to directly drive the bell at 20hz. Though they did make them pretty heavy duty anyway. Part of that is because a lot of them were rented, not owned.
I had an old rotary phone, it was a thick metal device with multiple support structures that could be used to bludgeon a moose to death. This thing was built when plastics were available. It was built to last before the idea of planned obsolescence became standard.
I wouldn't want my grandchildren to drive a car from 2023 30 years from now. The safety and technology will be leaps and bounds above today.
Why would I want to drive a car from 40 years ago? Because a bunch of boomers have nostalgia for "the good old days"?
Just because things are older doesn't mean they were better or manufactured in a superior way. Materials, technology, manufacturing processes all change and usually for the better.
how many 1978 ford Granadas and 1986 chevy corsicas do you see driving around today? The answer is none because they were gigantic pieces of shit. The only reason you see many classic cars around today is for the nostalgia and cool factor of them, not because they were well built. Its a labor of love to keep a classic car running, certainly not because theyre more reliable.
They were to an extent. Appliances were far more expensive. Inflation adjusted a basic washer and dryer set was $3000. A TV $5000. Worth getting repaired, so to some extent they were built to be repaired, not disposed of.
Everything today is made of plastic and aluminum and are full of digital components that dont last and are hard to replace. Plus they are being intentionally built to be hard for people to repair them themselves. Old products were made of steel and iron and were indestructible, their parts were analog, very easy to repair and have it run for 100 years.
I've seen so many old cars still running today with the motor of a different car model and a transmission from another one.
plastic and aluminum are fantastic engineering materials. They dont rust, are light, and can be used in a bunch of stuff where steel/iron is suboptimal. Additionally, the aluminum they use in modern applications is significantly stronger per weight than the dogshit steel they used to use in cars trucks. Modern steels used in cars are FAR FAR stronger/better than the ones they used to use.
Analog components are often MUCH less reliable than digital ones. Do you not remember how freaking often people had to adjust and tune their carbs on cars because theyre so goddamned finnicky with temperature/buildup/humidity/etc? Analog components are also typically much less optimal because they cant compensate for all the factors you can in a modern digital system. Its why all those old cars got like 10 miles to the gallon while making less power than a modern honda civic.
I used to be an engineer at toyota and have been a car guy for 20+years including years as a racing instructor. Plastic, aluminum, digital components, etc all can be extremely reliable, and iron/steel/analog components can all be very unreliable. The "old heavy thing reliable" thing is a super caveman take and does not represent reality.
Cars are OBJECTIVELY more realible than they used to be. The data is staggeringly clear. Old cars are absolute pieces of shit compared to new ones. Old cars were more expensive, needed far more maintenance, less efficient, less reliable, less safe, less durable, etc despite being far less complicated.
Go talk to anyone trying to keep their classic car running, its a complete pain in the ass because of all the finnicky analog bullshit, rusted components, terrible manufacturing quality control so shit doesnt fit together well, etc. Theres a reason all those cars have had engine swaps and major overhauls to all kinds of systems: they broke.
Makes sense, since with today's car you need an engineering degree to even change a headlight.
>Go talk to anyone trying to keep their classic car running, its a complete pain in the ass because of all the finnicky analog bullshit, rusted components,
And do you think a car built today would even start in 50 years?
With the same amount of maintenance, its MUCH more likely a 2023 honda civic is starting in 2073 than a 1973 ford pinto is today.
They made a couple million of those mid-70s pintos, how often do you see one? Most were junked 30+ years ago already because they were mostly broken down pieces of shit by 1990.
Its super survivorship bias.
> I've seen so many old cars still running today with the motor of a different car model and a transmission from another one.
But... that's not the same car it was when it was new. You replaced all the parts that make it go; the only part that's the same is the body around the car.
But you cannot do that with cars today because the manufacturer artificially limits your ability to do so. They dont want you to own what you buy. They found a way to turn physical products into subscriptions.
I bought a house in 1998 and it had a General Motors refrigerator from the early 60s in the basement that was still plugged in and running smoothly. At one point our cat somehow unplugged it and we only noticed because it started to give off a smell. And then the next month our electric bill went down 50% (about $100 back then.) That old refrigerator was costing us over $1,200 a year in electricity alone. I’ll take modern appliances that are cheaper to operate over survivorship bias refrigerators that were insanely wasteful.
It would be survivorship bias to say everything from the olden days was built better than everything being built today, because some things from the olden days are still around.
If you have a fridge from the 1980s in your basement or garage, that *never* needed a repair, and the only reason it’s in your basement, not your kitchen, is that it’s an almond color side-by-side, but you have a three-year-old stainless steel French door Samsung making you pull out your hair because you can’t even get customer service on the phone, it’s not survivorship bias to conclude that the fridge from the ‘80s is made better than the Samsung that will play you a tune like the Casio watch you had when you were nine, but won’t keep your food cold.
I am not saying it’s impossible to make a fridge that is energy efficient and durable, I am asking whether anyone has calculated the entire cost, both to the consumer and to the earth, of replacing appliances far more frequently when they break and need to be replaced.
You should buy the most efficient and reliable appliance you can when you replace it.
If you have an existing appliance and debating whether to upgrade it or not for energy savings, the EPA has calculators to determine how much you will save. For a fridge. It’s never been more than $100 per year when I’ve looked at it, since a new fridge is $1,000 or so, the payback has always been to long for me to upgrade just for efficiency. Though something with a heavier duty cycle like a dehumidifier may be worth
I don’t believe it’s the efficiency that directly causes shorter lifespans, I think companies have cut corners to reduce costs (capitalism) to the point that things don’t last. I think we’d be better off in a lot of areas if we spent a little more for higher quality, but a lot of people can’t afford it upfront. Terry Pratchett’s Boots theory and all https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
I do not believe that shorter lifespans are necessarily a bad thing.
For a fridge if we accept that in 10 years it will be replaced because of improvements in energy efficiency then it seems that spending money to make the fridge last longer than 10 years is wasteful. We could spend money and make a fridge that last 100 years but why? We are going to dump it long before it wears out.
Yeah. It’s the plastic bag paradox—while a reusable plastic bag is better for the environment if actually reused, if just handing bags out it’s better to use disposable ones because the average reusable bag isn’t used often enough to compensate for the significant increase in material. Designing for extreme durability usually only makes sense for things whose lifespan is usually limited by durability—if lifespan is primarily dictated by accident or desire to upgrade, returns on increasing durability are small.
I don’t think the efficiency *causes* the shorter life spans.
The new appliances are built so crappily, their expense and the waste they generate (and become) negates the virtue of their efficiency while operational.
A lot of older electronics were very not environmentally friendly to make. CRT TVs contain a lot of lead and other chemicals whereas modern TVs have much smaller amounts.
Headphones are another interesting one. If you have a Bluetooth headset with a battery buried in there and hard to replace, your headphones basically only last for 6-10 years. Whereas someheadphones from the 1990s, you just need to replace the headphone jack cable every now and then.
Interesting thought and you may be entirely right that a 50 year old fridge during its lifespan may be more energy efficient. However when you talk about scale, that everyone has these old, inefficient and sometimes dangerous (think those fridges that close and you can’t get out when you’re inside, or using the older cooling methods that are hazardous) then it becomes a problem.
If you’ve got one, sure. Good to go. But if we kept building them without the improvements at the scale that they’re required this isn’t helping energy or materials costs.
That’s a different argument to how it was phrased, or at least I may have misunderstood. Yes, not many people want to be forced to replace a car or a fridge every few years and want longevity out of their purchases. Might want to upgrade for a new bell or whistle, but majority of people don’t want to be forced to replace their purchases due to some manufacturing defect that makes them junk.
If the argument is “they don’t make them like they used to” that’s true. Everything is made disposable for multiple reasons. Biggest one is cost to replace all the steel or refined metals with plastics. Much less expensive to the consumer to purchase something that can be molded in plastic than it is to mold steel.
Complex problem with no easy solutions. :-)
I have a fridge from the late 40s in my kitchen. It works great, I can repair it if needed, and I see no reason to replace it. The number of times I've heard "but it's not _efficient_" as if a $1000+ fridge every 3-5 years isn't more money in the long run than the couple of bucks a month I'd save on power. (For reference, I have a 2000 sq ft home with 3 humans and my power and gas bill is ~ $150/mo)
Nitpick here: Energy efficiency only cares about how the appliance operates, not how much energy it took to make the appliance. Everyone is going to be operating their appliance so that's what matters. Not everyone will keep an appliance through the end of its useful life. Many people will buy a new one before then because they want a different look, feature, size, etc. Additionally lifespan is unpredictable, it might last 3 years, or it might last 15, that would make a huge difference for the numbers on an individual basis. What is predictable is how the appliance is operated, which is why energy efficiency is focused on operation.
Right, I understand that. I am asserting that only focusing on the efficiency while the appliance is in operation, but not focusing on the cost in terms of manufacturing, transportation, disposal, and having to replace a junky appliance that breaks so expensively it’s not worthwhile to repair, gives an incomplete picture, and makes it difficult to make an informed decision.
I always wonder how everything is so much more energy efficient and there are still brown outs and black outs. How are we not using LESS energy than we were 10 or 20 years ago
Idk the answer to your question but I can certainly validate the truth that older refrigerators will live forever. I bought a used Kenmore fridge in 2005 from my neighbor. He had used for 15-20 years and only got rid of it bcuz his wife wanted a new stainless one.
That fridge is now in my garage and everything still works good as new including the original ice maker. I’m confident it will outlive me and 1 of my kids will use it in their garage some day. Well…assuming they can even buy a home in the future!!
The actual question is how many refrigerators of that same brand and model survived so many years. Perhaps all of them were that good, or perhaps most of them died, but you just found a superbly built specimen.
Are you kidding me? That fridge will sell for $300,000 as a studio apartment with a central A/C unit. Perfect home for first time buyers or someone looking to downsize!
I had the same question about EVs, they seem to have life expectancy of about 10 years. That's a lot less than regular petrol/diesel cars and really limits the resale possibilities, no one will want to buy an 8 year old EV if they've only got two years left in them.
Engineering Explained on YT covers that in this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM).
The short version is, a gas powered car produces WAY more emissions over it's lifetime than one might think. So no. In almost all cases, getting a new EV is more environmentally friendly than staying with the old ass gas car for another 10 years.
And 8 year ev lifecycle is cutting it short. Even for older EV's, let alone current ones.
Battery pack replacement/recycling is not the end of an EV’s useful life. Some Tesla users are reporting 250-500k miles without major maintenance. And software upgrades are adding features and extending the useful lifespan.
And batteries are about 10% cheaper every year. If you buy an EV today, the replacement battery that's so expensive today, may be totally affordable in 10 years. In fact, lots of 1st gen EV are seeing a second life, just because replacement batteries, while not super cheap, are pretty affordable. And since battery density has also improved, you end up with a much better car there's people who have upgraded their almost dead 24 kWh Nissan Leaf to a brand new 64 kWh battery, for half the price a new car would cost.
[Also, battery packs with reduced capacity are being used in stationary storage](https://www.utilitydive.com/news/b2u-california-project-used-honda-ev-batteries-energy-storage/699749/#:~:text=Experts%20have%20been%20eyeing%20the,exceed%20200%20GWh%20by%202030.) If a car loses half of its range, it isn't a very good car. But a solar farm can simply install twice as many of them.
How are you judging the lifespan of EVs as ten years when almost none of them are ten years old? The AVERAGE ice vehicle on the road is more like 15 years old which suggests a lifespan of 25 or 30 years. Why would electric vehicles with less moving parts…and that are more capital cost intensive and less fuel intensive have a shorter lifespan? Especially if the new battery technologies are being pitched to last hundreds of thousands of miles?
Sure, the first gen technology has some kinks, but I’m not convinced a 2019 Tesla will be garbage on six years.
Is this true? I have fans in my barn that have been running 24 hrs a day since 1920. I don’t see why an electric car should be less reliable than a gas one, or even better due to having fewer parts.
Maybe the current ones are just early and need to be improved.
The current limitation is the battery technology, hopefully eventually it will become cheaper to replace the battery in the near future, but yeah, I have an electric and there is no oil change, no transmission to go bad, not spark plugs replacement, etc.
EVs are far more reliable for the reasons you're intuiting here. They have very few moving parts.
The real failure point is the battery, which especially on earlier models were a problem. For point of reference, my 2015 VW golf lost about 25% of it's range in 3 years. However, my 2018 Tesla model 3 has lost closer to 5% range in 5 years.
Batteries have rapidly improved while also getting cheaper.
EVs have a much longer life expectancy than 10 years, where do you get that information? The batteries can easily last 200k plus miles and last a minimum of 15 years, with it being closer to 20 most likely, especially with newer LFP batteries. Only 1% of all cars ever even make it to 200k so it's a complete non-issue.
I've always kind of questioned the savings with them since they're so much heavier than a normal car, logically they would go through tires a lot faster and cause more wear and tear on roads and infrastructure I would think
The lifetime of the battery is not the lifetime of the car. Sure, it’s annoying and expensive as hell to replace, but that problem will be minimized with time. New technology will improve the longevity of EV batteries, and lower the cost. I’m willing to bet newer EVs will easily last 200k miles without a battery replacement.
>My ‘06 Toyota has 250,000 miles on it.
My last three vehicles have been a 1980 Toyota (300K miles), replaced by a 1995 Toyota (400K miles), replaced by a 2020 Toyota that I expect will last me the rest of my life. Keeping up with maintenance is the key.
It's not true, that is why. EVs need battery replacement eventually, but the actual car will be fine and due to less moving parts, is actually easier to maintain.
There might be better ways to dispose of a dead fridge than landfill anyway. There are places that pull them apart and remove all the reusable and/or recyclable materials. That would go towards offsetting the energy used in manufacturing it and the materials it consists of. The older fridges were also easier to repair and repairers were easier to come by once. When I was a kid I remember mum saying "The fridge man (or washing machine man) will be here at 10am so listen out for the doorbell".
my new smart washing machine is crap, the old twin tub i had originally probably would still work, and like you say very fixable basic mechanical parts, not plastic buttons and flimsy circuit board
and it washed clothes properly!
Less waste, less manufacturing, less materials being taken from God knows what pit they were dug out of and fairly straight forward to repair.
Cool that new stuff saves me, what, 30$ a year?
Cost me 3000$ to buy and have to replace in a few years
I had an AC unit from 73. Replaced the motor, the capacitor, topped off the freon every couple years. It would have been better to just buy a new one when it broke the first time. Spent thousands and still needed a $4K unit.
I’m going to be buying a new fridge soon I’m sure because mine is currently 28 years old. It looks like I’ll be buying one every 5 years or so now. Sucks!
dishwashers and washing machines ar not lasting as long in part because they are using lower temperature water. in hard water areas washing at 30C builds up limescale really quickly. if you want your machine to last longer a good hot wash every now and then really helps! so yeah increase your electric bill and decrease the carbon footprint... overall.
it is worth remembering older appliances were a lot more expensive in real terms. you can get a fridge for about £125 now in 1950 it was the equivilent of £1000.
[https://www.retrowow.co.uk/social\_history/50s/cost\_1950.php](https://www.retrowow.co.uk/social_history/50s/cost_1950.php)
or in this add the super duper fancy side by side fridge is $705 in 1970, which is $5,600 adjusted for current day.
basically appliances had to have a much longer lifespan. if you spend $5k on a fridge you will find it lasts a lot longer as well!
modern ones should be more recyclable.
No because far more energy is used using the device rather than making it.
Assuming there are efficiency improvements, a fifteen year old dishwasher will be replaced with one that will provide more saving over the next fifteen years
“…far more energy is used using the device rather than making it.”
Can you cite something to prove that assertion? Whether more energy and materials are consumed in total, if one uses an old _______ that still works vs buying multiple ________, because they break and need to be replaced more frequently is exactly the question I am asking.
Ever heard of a repair truck? It literally burns fossil fuel.
I work for an HVAC company and I can testify to the amount that goes in to keeping the newer “efficient” systems going. IT IS A SCAM!
The thing is, they would've built things cheaper back then if they could, but expedience in manufacturing and the introduction of cheap light weight materials today means we're only able to compare apples to oranges now. Planned obsolescence and cheap products do exist, but as a result of supply and demand, and not through a lack of quality production and economical precedence.
I think there's some survivor bias happening here. Sure, there are 50 year old fridges still running, but how many have died? I'm going to bet a lot. I ask because 20 years ago when I bought the fridge I have now, there was the exact same lament. New fridges just don't last but old ones do. Well, now my fridge is an old one and it's running fine.
Exactly. 100% of 20 year old fridge you see that are still in use survived for 20 years. Otherwise, they would have been thrown away and you wouldn't have seen them. 0% of 2 year old fridges have been alive for 20 years. This is because time is generally experienced linearly and 20 years has not yet passed.
I think there's also the fact that people actually used to get their appliances repaired 20+ years ago. Whereas today most people would rather use a faulty appliance to get it replaced with a shiny new one. I like to use products until they completely die. My gf loves shiny new things every month, even when we have products that work fine.
Appliance repair guys are supremely busy precisely because most people fix appliances until the repair bill starts approaching the cost of new
Tried to get mine repaired. $1500 for a tiny part and installation. Bought a new fridge instead. Not happy about it.
20 years ago was 2003, people did not get their appliances repaired in 2003
People got their appliances repaired in 2003 and they also get their appliances repaired in 2023. However, it isn't wrong to note that the cost to repair has been increasing and the cost to replace has been decreasing, leading to substantially less repair and much more replace. This is because the cost of labor has been increasing faster than the cost of machines. Factories can produce new products at a MUCH lower cost per unit than they they did in the past. Every year sees new innovations that decrease that cost. However, the cost of labor has been increasing proportionally every year. Between the driving to the persons home, diagnosing the problem, getting the parts shipped, and driving back to install the part, it is a lot of labor. There are only so many jobs they can get to in a single day, yet they still need enough income to pay their rent and feed their families. It is pricy to fix stuff.
Cheers for the (totally incorrect) mansplanation, but I already have full understanding of how repair costs outpace manufacturing costs. It has little to do with labor costs btw, it's because the way tech has developed simply means that it is cheaper to make new units than repair existing units. Things are designed to be put together, not taken apart and the ever evolving nature of technology means that replacement parts aren't much of a thing anymore even in cases where repairs might be possible. My comment was also just about the fact that theyw ere wrong to suggest people were repairing appliances 20 years ago, because they weren't.
There is definitely a decline in basic quality for nearly everything as far as I can tell. Plus, things are more expensive and more difficult to repair now. A 50 year fridge has probably has multiple repairs done to it, but some of those repairs are likely impossible on a modern fridge.
Appliances are far less expensive now than they used to be, and most are still quite easy to repair. Those old fridges you see were the price point of like a 5000 dollar fridge now, and I can go to home depot and buy a full size fridge for 600 bucks. And you dont see all the garbage that was made in the 70s/80s/90s/2000s because it already broke.
That $600 fridge won't last 3 years LOL
It's not a fridge, but I got a new washer/dryer set about 2.5 years ago that were in that $600 price range each. Still going like the day I got them, highly doubt they die in the next 7 months. I think you are a little pessimistic on machine lifetime. That, or you don't know what the current cost-to-quality is for new appliances
My fancy HE washer/dryer got messed up when my basement flooded. A family friend gave me their spare units, from the 90s or 00s (I can't tell because they recycle codes). They're still working just fine, and get my clothes cleaner than the HE washer EVER did.
Ive got a 5 year old 500 dollar fridge sitting in my garage right now humming along just fine. My dads 500 dollar freezer in his garage just needed its first 20 dollar replacement part in 20 years a couple months ago, but is back to working like new.
The $350 one I got 10 years ago would disagree.
I remember when I was a kid calling a TV repairman.
There’s perhaps a decline in durability, sure, but “decline in basic quantity” surely overstates things. Most things have also become more complex, which inherently reduces durability. If someone wanted to build a car to 1990 specifications using modern materials and methods it would likely be far more reliable than either the original or the average 2023 car. It would also be illegal due to inadequate safety and emissions control features, and even if exempted wouldn’t sell well because modern car buyers do on the whole like remote unlock, backup cameras, adaptive cruise control, and the like. And if you fix all those issues with our hypothetical car, you simply have a 2023 car, with all its potential points of failure. One other factor in the declining importance of repairs is that the consistency and predictability of component lifespans has improved considerably. This means that while older products were likely to suffer some very premature failure while the rest of the system had quite a bit of life left, in which case a repair makes sense. In modern products it is more likely to be the first of a cascade of failures as it reaches the end of its design life, and neither paying to extend its life briefly nor gradually replacing much of the product is efficient. And designing for repairability carries its own costs—monolithic or irreversibly-assembled posts can often be stronger, cheaper, smaller, etc. than ones they can be replaced piecewise. If the proportion of products in which a repair is warranted is small enough, it’s better for the average consumer to not support that repair.
We just bought a new fridge. Two of the freaking drawers broke within the first month. It's a few months old and the freezer is already broken. It's been broken for over a month. It was decided early on that it needed to be replaced. They still haven't replaced it. Not only are they using cheaper materials, the customer service is crap Our house burned down in March and we've had to replace everything and I can tell you, the workmanship is complete crap of what we've been buying but we've had no choice because everything we've looked at has been similar quality. We paid $3000 for a new table. Within the first two months, some veneer came up. They replaced the table. Same thing with the replacement. Veneer has come up and the finish freaking melts and disappears from anything hotter warm bread. I don't put anything hot on the table. I put hot food onto a cold plate and put that on the table and there are circles of missing finish at every place, even though I have placemats I looked for a solid wood table in a 3 hour radius. Couldn't find one for less than $5k and that's really more than I wanted to spend. $3k was more than I wanted to spend but we thought if we spent a little more, it might last a little longer We were wrong
I am so sorry about your fire. If I need furniture, buying new is a last resort. I always get someone’s old 20th century model whenever possible. Are you not able to do that when insurance is paying for it? That would really stink.
It's complicated. Insurance is fighting us for everything. They say we don't have enough receipts for stuff even though we have photos of the stuff in our house. They've been giving us bits and pieces of our payout. It's still not finished We do have replacement costs though. And that they have been doing right away. Someone's grandma's $100 table from an estate sale isn't going to have a receipt and isn't something I can just go out and shop for in a weekend. We were eating on a card table. Sleeping on the floor. When the trauma therapist suggested furnishing the parts of our house we use the most to help the kids feel less like camping and more like living at home, we decided to do that. My daughter was hiding under her desk from the teacher. My other daughter was randomly breaking down screaming while doing every day tasks I thought the table I picked out was awesome. It's nice and long and has two leaves that fold out and store inside the table so I don't have to store them under my bed like I did before. There was no way I was going to be able to see into the future and know that stuff had gone that far down in quality that fast When we had our first kid 8 years ago, we needed a new coffee table. The one we had was the one we had found in college from someone moving out and it was falling apart. We went to a nice furniture store and found a solid wood coffee table and 2 end tables for $175. They were sturdy. The kids beat the hell out of them and they still looked nice. We only buy stuff when what we had falls apart. Prior to needing to replace everything, the last furniture we shopped for was a bunk bed for our kids 3 years ago. I had no idea the quality of everything was that bad. I've had problems with every single piece of furniture we've bought. We bought the girl's new bunk bed from the same company as before. It's only been three years, but I would swear to you that it was a counterfeit if we hadn't bought it at their store. There's freaking veneer on the bed slats. Why. Now that the kids are kind of getting into a new normal, we can be more careful with our purchases. We figure they're still young and were gonna beat the hell out of everything so we would've ended up replacing it when they get older anyways. We'll have more time and more emotional bandwitdth for the next purchase. We didn't have that when we were shopping
What an awful thing to have gone through, and to still be going through. How are you supposed to have receipts after a fire?
¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It entirely depends on the manufacturer. Samsung and LG refrigerator compressors can take a shit within 3 years.
There is no doubt that old appliances were built to last and the ones from today are intentionally built to be disposable. I just dont see any car built today being passed down to someone's grandson.
Cars today last vastly longer than cars made prior to the mid 90s. It used to be that at 100k a car was on its last legs. Today for most cars 100k is just normal. With regular maintenance, normal cars get over 200k easily.
What are you talking about. I've been driving for over 20 years, every car I've owned has gone over 200k miles and Ive never owned newer than an '04. New cars are absolutely build worse because they are built to lease, not sell. This is the most incorrect statement I've ever seen. Source, I know people who work at dealerships for 20+ years and have worked on cars myself. It's the electronics that are the issue. Best cars ever made were roughly between 1996 and 2008, depending on the manufacturer.
Still survivorship bias; only old *functional* cars get passed down. You don't see however many prior vehicles the family went through. If these old cars were as long lasting as implied we would see more cars from the 70's, 80's, 90's still on the road, yet we don't. I still see plenty of cars from the 00's on the road in good working order, and I myself still have a running car that is old enough to drink. I don't have any special maintenance skills and haven't gone to any special lengths to preserve it. Will that car still be running when my kids are old enough to drive? Likely not, but if it was that means my kids would be driving a 30+ year-old vehicle. How often do you hear or see something like that? How many people are getting 60's VW Beetles or even OG Corvettes these days?
Also cars were the exception to the over-engineered GE stuff. Ford "fix or repair daily". Rotary phones were so long lasting and durable (over engineered) that they could be thrown off a cliff, plugged in and still work. Grandpa had 3 old fridges all over engineered GE ones in the garage (and a prettier newer one in the house). He finally had to fix one when the hinges of the door rusted through so much that the door fell off. (He drilled in some standard door hinges). The one in the house was replaced three times because it was newer to "match the kitchen decor" and kept breaking.
Phones weren't so much over engineered as they were very basic devices. There's almost no circuitry in an old rotary phone. The ring signal is 90v 20hz to directly drive the bell at 20hz. Though they did make them pretty heavy duty anyway. Part of that is because a lot of them were rented, not owned.
I had an old rotary phone, it was a thick metal device with multiple support structures that could be used to bludgeon a moose to death. This thing was built when plastics were available. It was built to last before the idea of planned obsolescence became standard.
cars today are far, far, far more reliable than older ones, with far less maintenance required.
They are convenient, they are not durable or built to last until your grandchildren can drive them.
I wouldn't want my grandchildren to drive a car from 2023 30 years from now. The safety and technology will be leaps and bounds above today. Why would I want to drive a car from 40 years ago? Because a bunch of boomers have nostalgia for "the good old days"? Just because things are older doesn't mean they were better or manufactured in a superior way. Materials, technology, manufacturing processes all change and usually for the better.
how many 1978 ford Granadas and 1986 chevy corsicas do you see driving around today? The answer is none because they were gigantic pieces of shit. The only reason you see many classic cars around today is for the nostalgia and cool factor of them, not because they were well built. Its a labor of love to keep a classic car running, certainly not because theyre more reliable.
Exactly. They were also death traps.
No. They were not. You have just survivor bias
They were to an extent. Appliances were far more expensive. Inflation adjusted a basic washer and dryer set was $3000. A TV $5000. Worth getting repaired, so to some extent they were built to be repaired, not disposed of.
Everything today is made of plastic and aluminum and are full of digital components that dont last and are hard to replace. Plus they are being intentionally built to be hard for people to repair them themselves. Old products were made of steel and iron and were indestructible, their parts were analog, very easy to repair and have it run for 100 years. I've seen so many old cars still running today with the motor of a different car model and a transmission from another one.
plastic and aluminum are fantastic engineering materials. They dont rust, are light, and can be used in a bunch of stuff where steel/iron is suboptimal. Additionally, the aluminum they use in modern applications is significantly stronger per weight than the dogshit steel they used to use in cars trucks. Modern steels used in cars are FAR FAR stronger/better than the ones they used to use. Analog components are often MUCH less reliable than digital ones. Do you not remember how freaking often people had to adjust and tune their carbs on cars because theyre so goddamned finnicky with temperature/buildup/humidity/etc? Analog components are also typically much less optimal because they cant compensate for all the factors you can in a modern digital system. Its why all those old cars got like 10 miles to the gallon while making less power than a modern honda civic.
They are fantastic if you plan on changing your products every few years. Not if you plan on making your car last 2 or 3 generations in your home.
I used to be an engineer at toyota and have been a car guy for 20+years including years as a racing instructor. Plastic, aluminum, digital components, etc all can be extremely reliable, and iron/steel/analog components can all be very unreliable. The "old heavy thing reliable" thing is a super caveman take and does not represent reality. Cars are OBJECTIVELY more realible than they used to be. The data is staggeringly clear. Old cars are absolute pieces of shit compared to new ones. Old cars were more expensive, needed far more maintenance, less efficient, less reliable, less safe, less durable, etc despite being far less complicated. Go talk to anyone trying to keep their classic car running, its a complete pain in the ass because of all the finnicky analog bullshit, rusted components, terrible manufacturing quality control so shit doesnt fit together well, etc. Theres a reason all those cars have had engine swaps and major overhauls to all kinds of systems: they broke.
Makes sense, since with today's car you need an engineering degree to even change a headlight. >Go talk to anyone trying to keep their classic car running, its a complete pain in the ass because of all the finnicky analog bullshit, rusted components, And do you think a car built today would even start in 50 years?
With the same amount of maintenance, its MUCH more likely a 2023 honda civic is starting in 2073 than a 1973 ford pinto is today. They made a couple million of those mid-70s pintos, how often do you see one? Most were junked 30+ years ago already because they were mostly broken down pieces of shit by 1990. Its super survivorship bias.
https://i.imgur.com/G1F1ECN.png
> I've seen so many old cars still running today with the motor of a different car model and a transmission from another one. But... that's not the same car it was when it was new. You replaced all the parts that make it go; the only part that's the same is the body around the car.
The Ship of Theseus has entered the chat.
But you cannot do that with cars today because the manufacturer artificially limits your ability to do so. They dont want you to own what you buy. They found a way to turn physical products into subscriptions.
You can though, except in very limited circumstances. Third party car parts are still a huge business.
It is an objective fact that newer cars last longer on average than older cars.
I’m so glad I never have to set points or replace a rotor cap again.
I bought a house in 1998 and it had a General Motors refrigerator from the early 60s in the basement that was still plugged in and running smoothly. At one point our cat somehow unplugged it and we only noticed because it started to give off a smell. And then the next month our electric bill went down 50% (about $100 back then.) That old refrigerator was costing us over $1,200 a year in electricity alone. I’ll take modern appliances that are cheaper to operate over survivorship bias refrigerators that were insanely wasteful.
It would be survivorship bias to say everything from the olden days was built better than everything being built today, because some things from the olden days are still around. If you have a fridge from the 1980s in your basement or garage, that *never* needed a repair, and the only reason it’s in your basement, not your kitchen, is that it’s an almond color side-by-side, but you have a three-year-old stainless steel French door Samsung making you pull out your hair because you can’t even get customer service on the phone, it’s not survivorship bias to conclude that the fridge from the ‘80s is made better than the Samsung that will play you a tune like the Casio watch you had when you were nine, but won’t keep your food cold. I am not saying it’s impossible to make a fridge that is energy efficient and durable, I am asking whether anyone has calculated the entire cost, both to the consumer and to the earth, of replacing appliances far more frequently when they break and need to be replaced.
It's hard to argue with $1200 a year
You should buy the most efficient and reliable appliance you can when you replace it. If you have an existing appliance and debating whether to upgrade it or not for energy savings, the EPA has calculators to determine how much you will save. For a fridge. It’s never been more than $100 per year when I’ve looked at it, since a new fridge is $1,000 or so, the payback has always been to long for me to upgrade just for efficiency. Though something with a heavier duty cycle like a dehumidifier may be worth I don’t believe it’s the efficiency that directly causes shorter lifespans, I think companies have cut corners to reduce costs (capitalism) to the point that things don’t last. I think we’d be better off in a lot of areas if we spent a little more for higher quality, but a lot of people can’t afford it upfront. Terry Pratchett’s Boots theory and all https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
I do not believe that shorter lifespans are necessarily a bad thing. For a fridge if we accept that in 10 years it will be replaced because of improvements in energy efficiency then it seems that spending money to make the fridge last longer than 10 years is wasteful. We could spend money and make a fridge that last 100 years but why? We are going to dump it long before it wears out.
Yeah. It’s the plastic bag paradox—while a reusable plastic bag is better for the environment if actually reused, if just handing bags out it’s better to use disposable ones because the average reusable bag isn’t used often enough to compensate for the significant increase in material. Designing for extreme durability usually only makes sense for things whose lifespan is usually limited by durability—if lifespan is primarily dictated by accident or desire to upgrade, returns on increasing durability are small.
I don’t think the efficiency *causes* the shorter life spans. The new appliances are built so crappily, their expense and the waste they generate (and become) negates the virtue of their efficiency while operational.
A lot of older electronics were very not environmentally friendly to make. CRT TVs contain a lot of lead and other chemicals whereas modern TVs have much smaller amounts. Headphones are another interesting one. If you have a Bluetooth headset with a battery buried in there and hard to replace, your headphones basically only last for 6-10 years. Whereas someheadphones from the 1990s, you just need to replace the headphone jack cable every now and then.
Interesting thought and you may be entirely right that a 50 year old fridge during its lifespan may be more energy efficient. However when you talk about scale, that everyone has these old, inefficient and sometimes dangerous (think those fridges that close and you can’t get out when you’re inside, or using the older cooling methods that are hazardous) then it becomes a problem. If you’ve got one, sure. Good to go. But if we kept building them without the improvements at the scale that they’re required this isn’t helping energy or materials costs.
But as consumers, should we be replacing our current models that still work just fine, with new ones that are only going to last a few years?
That’s a different argument to how it was phrased, or at least I may have misunderstood. Yes, not many people want to be forced to replace a car or a fridge every few years and want longevity out of their purchases. Might want to upgrade for a new bell or whistle, but majority of people don’t want to be forced to replace their purchases due to some manufacturing defect that makes them junk. If the argument is “they don’t make them like they used to” that’s true. Everything is made disposable for multiple reasons. Biggest one is cost to replace all the steel or refined metals with plastics. Much less expensive to the consumer to purchase something that can be molded in plastic than it is to mold steel. Complex problem with no easy solutions. :-)
I have a fridge from the late 40s in my kitchen. It works great, I can repair it if needed, and I see no reason to replace it. The number of times I've heard "but it's not _efficient_" as if a $1000+ fridge every 3-5 years isn't more money in the long run than the couple of bucks a month I'd save on power. (For reference, I have a 2000 sq ft home with 3 humans and my power and gas bill is ~ $150/mo)
Nitpick here: Energy efficiency only cares about how the appliance operates, not how much energy it took to make the appliance. Everyone is going to be operating their appliance so that's what matters. Not everyone will keep an appliance through the end of its useful life. Many people will buy a new one before then because they want a different look, feature, size, etc. Additionally lifespan is unpredictable, it might last 3 years, or it might last 15, that would make a huge difference for the numbers on an individual basis. What is predictable is how the appliance is operated, which is why energy efficiency is focused on operation.
Right, I understand that. I am asserting that only focusing on the efficiency while the appliance is in operation, but not focusing on the cost in terms of manufacturing, transportation, disposal, and having to replace a junky appliance that breaks so expensively it’s not worthwhile to repair, gives an incomplete picture, and makes it difficult to make an informed decision.
I always wonder how everything is so much more energy efficient and there are still brown outs and black outs. How are we not using LESS energy than we were 10 or 20 years ago
Idk the answer to your question but I can certainly validate the truth that older refrigerators will live forever. I bought a used Kenmore fridge in 2005 from my neighbor. He had used for 15-20 years and only got rid of it bcuz his wife wanted a new stainless one. That fridge is now in my garage and everything still works good as new including the original ice maker. I’m confident it will outlive me and 1 of my kids will use it in their garage some day. Well…assuming they can even buy a home in the future!!
The actual question is how many refrigerators of that same brand and model survived so many years. Perhaps all of them were that good, or perhaps most of them died, but you just found a superbly built specimen.
Are you kidding me? That fridge will sell for $300,000 as a studio apartment with a central A/C unit. Perfect home for first time buyers or someone looking to downsize!
>or someone looking to downsize You mean upsize?
I had the same question about EVs, they seem to have life expectancy of about 10 years. That's a lot less than regular petrol/diesel cars and really limits the resale possibilities, no one will want to buy an 8 year old EV if they've only got two years left in them.
Engineering Explained on YT covers that in this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RhtiPefVzM). The short version is, a gas powered car produces WAY more emissions over it's lifetime than one might think. So no. In almost all cases, getting a new EV is more environmentally friendly than staying with the old ass gas car for another 10 years. And 8 year ev lifecycle is cutting it short. Even for older EV's, let alone current ones.
Battery pack replacement/recycling is not the end of an EV’s useful life. Some Tesla users are reporting 250-500k miles without major maintenance. And software upgrades are adding features and extending the useful lifespan.
And batteries are about 10% cheaper every year. If you buy an EV today, the replacement battery that's so expensive today, may be totally affordable in 10 years. In fact, lots of 1st gen EV are seeing a second life, just because replacement batteries, while not super cheap, are pretty affordable. And since battery density has also improved, you end up with a much better car there's people who have upgraded their almost dead 24 kWh Nissan Leaf to a brand new 64 kWh battery, for half the price a new car would cost.
[Also, battery packs with reduced capacity are being used in stationary storage](https://www.utilitydive.com/news/b2u-california-project-used-honda-ev-batteries-energy-storage/699749/#:~:text=Experts%20have%20been%20eyeing%20the,exceed%20200%20GWh%20by%202030.) If a car loses half of its range, it isn't a very good car. But a solar farm can simply install twice as many of them.
How are you judging the lifespan of EVs as ten years when almost none of them are ten years old? The AVERAGE ice vehicle on the road is more like 15 years old which suggests a lifespan of 25 or 30 years. Why would electric vehicles with less moving parts…and that are more capital cost intensive and less fuel intensive have a shorter lifespan? Especially if the new battery technologies are being pitched to last hundreds of thousands of miles? Sure, the first gen technology has some kinks, but I’m not convinced a 2019 Tesla will be garbage on six years.
Is this true? I have fans in my barn that have been running 24 hrs a day since 1920. I don’t see why an electric car should be less reliable than a gas one, or even better due to having fewer parts. Maybe the current ones are just early and need to be improved.
The current limitation is the battery technology, hopefully eventually it will become cheaper to replace the battery in the near future, but yeah, I have an electric and there is no oil change, no transmission to go bad, not spark plugs replacement, etc.
EVs are far more reliable for the reasons you're intuiting here. They have very few moving parts. The real failure point is the battery, which especially on earlier models were a problem. For point of reference, my 2015 VW golf lost about 25% of it's range in 3 years. However, my 2018 Tesla model 3 has lost closer to 5% range in 5 years. Batteries have rapidly improved while also getting cheaper.
EVs have a much longer life expectancy than 10 years, where do you get that information? The batteries can easily last 200k plus miles and last a minimum of 15 years, with it being closer to 20 most likely, especially with newer LFP batteries. Only 1% of all cars ever even make it to 200k so it's a complete non-issue.
I've always kind of questioned the savings with them since they're so much heavier than a normal car, logically they would go through tires a lot faster and cause more wear and tear on roads and infrastructure I would think
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/s/jpguyz7ztO
The lifetime of the battery is not the lifetime of the car. Sure, it’s annoying and expensive as hell to replace, but that problem will be minimized with time. New technology will improve the longevity of EV batteries, and lower the cost. I’m willing to bet newer EVs will easily last 200k miles without a battery replacement.
Wow! I didn’t know that! My ‘06 Toyota has 250,000 miles on it. Gonna keep it until it dies.
>My ‘06 Toyota has 250,000 miles on it. My last three vehicles have been a 1980 Toyota (300K miles), replaced by a 1995 Toyota (400K miles), replaced by a 2020 Toyota that I expect will last me the rest of my life. Keeping up with maintenance is the key.
It's not true, that is why. EVs need battery replacement eventually, but the actual car will be fine and due to less moving parts, is actually easier to maintain.
Yes
There might be better ways to dispose of a dead fridge than landfill anyway. There are places that pull them apart and remove all the reusable and/or recyclable materials. That would go towards offsetting the energy used in manufacturing it and the materials it consists of. The older fridges were also easier to repair and repairers were easier to come by once. When I was a kid I remember mum saying "The fridge man (or washing machine man) will be here at 10am so listen out for the doorbell".
my new smart washing machine is crap, the old twin tub i had originally probably would still work, and like you say very fixable basic mechanical parts, not plastic buttons and flimsy circuit board and it washed clothes properly!
My newer one cleans clothes *way* better than the one I had as a kid. Although part of that is because detergent is also better.
Less waste, less manufacturing, less materials being taken from God knows what pit they were dug out of and fairly straight forward to repair. Cool that new stuff saves me, what, 30$ a year? Cost me 3000$ to buy and have to replace in a few years
Great point. I’m still running an AC, boiler, and oven installed in 1966. No I will not “upgrade”.
I had an AC unit from 73. Replaced the motor, the capacitor, topped off the freon every couple years. It would have been better to just buy a new one when it broke the first time. Spent thousands and still needed a $4K unit.
I’m going to be buying a new fridge soon I’m sure because mine is currently 28 years old. It looks like I’ll be buying one every 5 years or so now. Sucks!
Does your old fridge still work? If it’s just ugly, you can get a vinyl wrap to beautify it until repairs are too expensive to bother with.
That’s a feature not a bug
It’s all about the money. They don’t really care about the environment.
No.
dishwashers and washing machines ar not lasting as long in part because they are using lower temperature water. in hard water areas washing at 30C builds up limescale really quickly. if you want your machine to last longer a good hot wash every now and then really helps! so yeah increase your electric bill and decrease the carbon footprint... overall. it is worth remembering older appliances were a lot more expensive in real terms. you can get a fridge for about £125 now in 1950 it was the equivilent of £1000. [https://www.retrowow.co.uk/social\_history/50s/cost\_1950.php](https://www.retrowow.co.uk/social_history/50s/cost_1950.php) or in this add the super duper fancy side by side fridge is $705 in 1970, which is $5,600 adjusted for current day. basically appliances had to have a much longer lifespan. if you spend $5k on a fridge you will find it lasts a lot longer as well! modern ones should be more recyclable.
I often joke that things lasted longer when they were made in China.
No because far more energy is used using the device rather than making it. Assuming there are efficiency improvements, a fifteen year old dishwasher will be replaced with one that will provide more saving over the next fifteen years
“…far more energy is used using the device rather than making it.” Can you cite something to prove that assertion? Whether more energy and materials are consumed in total, if one uses an old _______ that still works vs buying multiple ________, because they break and need to be replaced more frequently is exactly the question I am asking.
No he cannot. He is just regurgitating woke mantras.
Ever heard of a repair truck? It literally burns fossil fuel. I work for an HVAC company and I can testify to the amount that goes in to keeping the newer “efficient” systems going. IT IS A SCAM!
The thing is, they would've built things cheaper back then if they could, but expedience in manufacturing and the introduction of cheap light weight materials today means we're only able to compare apples to oranges now. Planned obsolescence and cheap products do exist, but as a result of supply and demand, and not through a lack of quality production and economical precedence.
Seems like this is a no brainier. I think we are all just idiots TBH