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O Holy Crap

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Re: O Holy Crap

#171

Post by Damogran6 »

bumby wrote: post #133
eternityforest wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reliability now isn't done with the same methods as it was then. Back then, the good stuff might have been good because the motor was big. The modern good stuff probably has a brushless motor that can prevent stalls. It doesn't matter if it's big or small, the computer won't let it overheat, so they can make it smaller to save money that they can spend on whatever part is the actual failure mode. The trouble is findi…

> I would gladly use 10k lines of code to save one moving part or one switch This creates a whole new reliability problem. Software reliability is notorious for its interface failures and there can be many more of those modes (where hardware typically has a few wear-out style failures). I think about my relatively high-end TV that seems to always struggle with software updates without any glitches. It seems like we'v…

Got a nespresso Machine last year...worked great....hooked up to Wifi and the phone app and had it firmware update and it turned it into a brick.

They sent me a replacement that works great and is entirely ignorant of the outside world (and will stay that way.)

Re: O Holy Crap

#172

Post by syntheweave »

user3939382 wrote: post #105
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #94

I just don't see it. My pens and my matchsticks work fine. My gloves are still gloves five winters later. Potato peeler, peels potatoes. I think the author doesn't understand that there's a tier of disposable goods for just about everything and if you don't shop wisely you'll take some of it home. Appliances for example: don't buy them from web pages and don't listen to Wirecutter. This is just letting marketers tell…

> there's a tier of disposable goods There are some product categories for which no strong options exist. For example, contemporary, top-of-the-line Kitchen Aid mixers have intermittently been produced with plastic motor parts. Go look at the reviews for sewing machines. Klein tools, which have historically been super high quality, made in USA, has started mixing in cheaper made in china products. Chippewa boots (War…

I believe some of this comes down to the product category being redefined over time.

Kitchen appliances are really prone to this because the major processes actually needed in the kitchen - heat, cool, cut, stir - are all variations on a theme, and some of the processes have been usurped by "service" versions where the ingredient is pre-processed, e.g. instead of grinding coffee, buying pre-ground or instant.

Where pre-processing works well, it becomes the norm, and then what follows is that the traditional product gets cost-cut into oblivion, until, decades later, some kind of artisanal movement springs up and there's interest in quality options again. Coffee really did follow this pattern, the original instant coffees set the norm for most of the 20th century, even though everyone can tell that they're nothing like freshly ground coffee.

With the biggest, most-frequently needed stuff - stove, refrigerator, knives, pans - you can find good options in any year, especially if you search for the "do exactly one thing well" options in the category, like chest freezers. Once you get into a more specific category the pressure is off, though, and companies are more likely to sell you a disposable "experience".

Re: O Holy Crap

#173

Post by unregistereddev »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #96
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #94

I just don't see it. My pens and my matchsticks work fine. My gloves are still gloves five winters later. Potato peeler, peels potatoes. I think the author doesn't understand that there's a tier of disposable goods for just about everything and if you don't shop wisely you'll take some of it home. Appliances for example: don't buy them from web pages and don't listen to Wirecutter. This is just letting marketers tell…

If only. My three-generation appliance store sold me a fancy dishwasher that wouldn't release soap - the little door jammed against the wire rack in operation, opened a quarter inch and finished with a wad of gummy soap still inside. No way it could ever work. The store claimed it was 'supposed to work that way'. Lame.

I've seen this problem before. While it's not a smart design, it usually works. Your racks are likely not pushed all the way into the dishwasher. It's possibly an installation problem; if the dishwasher is not level, gravity will pull the racks towards the door. Try adjusting the feet under the kickplate to raise the front of the dishwasher.

Re: O Holy Crap

#174

Post by eternityforest »

jtbayly wrote: post #123
eternityforest wrote: post #54

I just don't see it. Were I to go shopping at wal-mart, and if I didn't understand anything about failure modes, I might, but I find it very easy to find things that last. Partly because out lifestyle now is lighter on things, and we need fewer of them. I don't need a juicer because... I don't juice. Another factor might be that we still have an obsession with "Power". Look at how impact drivers are reviewed, based o…

A broken fridge ruins lots of food, worth lots of money. A broken washing machine or dishwasher can flood your house, costing 10s of thousands of dollars. A broken dryer can burn your house down. And even if some of those aren’t common failure modes (fridge is common), it is incredibly inconvenient and expensive to be without a major appliance for (insert supply chain guesstimate number of) weeks every year or so.

I've only personally seen one failure like that, a bad washer flooding a friend's house.

I would imagine a heat pump dryer would be very unlikely to burn anything down.

It is a really big inconvenience when they go offline, but there are still lots of brands that seem to work fine for 10 to 20 years.

I'm surprised ultra high reliability isn't more of a consumer selling point. Refrigerators in particular could do it with a redundant compressor and valves, they could share the evaporator and condensing coils. It's not like fridge compressors cost that much to make. They could even use 2 small ones and run them all the time, so if 1 fails you get half power but it still works.

Washers and dryers could do redundancy by selling pairs of identical combo units instead of 1 washer and 1 dryer, but I suppose people don't need to replace both at once very often.

Re: O Holy Crap

#175

Post by taylodl »

vages wrote: post #4

Be aware that survivorship bias may fool you when comparing the quality of new and old items. The single juicer that lasts 70 years may be the only one of its kind to last that long, the others from the same production year being left to rot and rust in a landfill. That being said, I definitely believe that planned obsolesence and unintentional bad quality is a plague on modern consumer items. I am lucky enough to ha…

People forget things used to cost a lot of money. I remember when our family bought our first color TV set back in the early 70's. You can buy a 65" HDTV set today for the same amount of money - and that's in today's dollars which are significantly less valuable than the dollars in the early 70's!

That TV didn't last 20 years - it was a huge hassle continually testing and replacing tubes.

Meanwhile I bought a 55" HDTV almost 20 years ago that's still running fine.

Re: O Holy Crap

#176

Post by wincy »

cfeduke wrote: post #61
wincy wrote: post #7

My $4000 GE refrigerator has broken twice now in the five years we have owned it, both times in the exact same way. The way the fridge works seems simple: the cold freezer is on the bottom, and then a fan blows air up through a shaft to the relatively warmer refrigerator as needed to keep it just above freezing. Instead, the failure state is that the fan that handles this broke with no warning. I lost a bunch of groc…

I have the original refrigerator the previous owners installed when we purchased the house. It's from the 1990s. It is sometimes loud, but I am afraid to replace it. I am sometimes awed by the new, sleek fridges in the home improvement store but then Admiral Ackbar's voice rings in my head and gives me a +8 to my Will save. So far so good. Every 2-4 years I replace the dishwasher, dryer, and washing machine. The firs…

Ah yeah I paid for Consumer reports and instead of buying an expensive dishwasher got the $500 Bosch that they claimed washed as well as the $2000 Thermador dishwasher. It has been going strong for a few years, no complaints here.

I know Consumer Reports can’t really account for durability although I think they survey their members to see what’s still working, so it’s better than most places.

Re: O Holy Crap

#177

Post by carapace »

jtbayly wrote: post #111
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw it away! It is costing more in annual electricity than a new one. Never mind it's old; it's insulation is worthless and its compressor is very inefficient.

Is this a joke?! Are you a fridge salesman or something? You do understand that many of us would pay more for that fridge and gladly pay way more in electricity to have it perform its job reliably, right?

The idea is to have inexpensive refrigerators that use less energy and last many decades. (And when they are superseded by even more efficient models there should be a clear recycle/reuse "exit" for the old appliances. I hear they have laws to that effect over in Germany, something like that. Keeps the old obsolete appliances out of the landfill.)

Re: O Holy Crap

#178

Post by wincy »

HeXetic wrote: post #132
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In contrast the $120 freezers in my garage have given improbably years of service without a single issue. New from big box store; reviews warned of possible failure and loss of content. But mine must be the good ones. Somebody has to get the good one I guess.

Chest freezers cannot be compared to household kitchen refrigerator-freezer combinations. There's way, way, way less complexity. * No need to split & balance the refrigeration between fridge & freezer * No expectation of a defrost cycle on the freezer * Generally less stuff: no water or ice dispenser, less lights, less fancy bins & trays & veg drawers etc. * Chest freezers get opened less, and the top-opening lid let…

My refrigerator works fine as long as the fan holds up. I’m not sure why they used such a terrible fan though.

Re: O Holy Crap

#179

Post by docandrew »

oblio wrote: post #110
ejb999 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, bulbs are now all complete crap - they used to last decades. Was having my house painted a few years back, I have a triple set of spots near the very top of the roof (so about 30 feet in the air) - painter helpfully suggests - do you want me to replace those bulbs up there while I have my ladder up there? I agreed. Big mistake, the bulbs their were still working 17 years after I moved in - now I have to replace…

Your anecdata is bad. Even after the conspiracy was discovered, incandescent bulbs still had a much lower life expectancy than LED lights. It's simple physics :-)

The LEDs themselves are very robust, solid-state semiconductors that will function for a very long time, but they need additional electronics to function in a 110/220V socket, and those electronics seem to be crummier than the old incandescent filaments.

Re: O Holy Crap

#180

Post by docandrew »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #55
lordgroff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of shopping wisely and, at least sometimes, of spending more money up front. People always reach for the smelling salts when I tell them how much my (hand) coffee grinder cost, but that thing is almost certain to outlast me.

I've got my selling salts, please tell me which coffee grinder you own? And by the way, since the topic of "where do I find the good stuff" keeps coming up, why is there no site that is your one-stop recommendation destination for finding quality appliances, tools? We all know we can no longer trust Amazon reviews. Consumer Reports has been around for ages but I don't feel they've kept in lockstep with the changing t…

I feel like there’s a great opportunity for a founder to start a new eCommerce site with supply chain verification to weed out fakes, and who would do their own testing a la Consumer Reports in addition to customer reviews.
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