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Goodbye non-KISS appliances

willbush.dev

431–440 of 499 posts

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived on both sides of the pond, you'd tend to buy different kinds of products, in USA the grocery variety pushes you towards less fresh/spoiling products and more towards various processed products which will up a fridge for weeks. And also actually food in US does somehow seem to last for longer, as probably the manufacturers anticipate this need and optimize for that (as there's no free lunch, likely at the…

Which begs the question - what not-yet-in-the-spotlight chemical crap makes this happen? Since ingredients are the same, devices are the same yet they last longer as you mention. Maybe something about vastly different food quality standards between the sides of the pond.

We buy lactose free milk because it lasts much longer

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#432
If you read this and thought, "I wish I knew where to buy a good xyz" I recommend you check out Ben's Appliances and Junk on youtube and the BIFL (Buy It For Life) subreddit. Both have helped me.

It often seems impossible to buy things that are quality or free of extraneous features no matter what you are willing to pay. It's frustrating.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#433
post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should be able to decide that I don't care about this type of privacy. Sure there are people out there that could be harmed by this. I don't believe in the argument that you can't have a market with both ways, one where you can't opt in and other where you can. I should be able to choose to give my medical data to companies if there are ways to improve my lifestyle and quality from that. And to me that is exciting.…

> I don't believe in the argument that you can't have a market with both ways, one where you can't opt in and other where you can. the problem is that “the market” doesn’t care what you believe in or what you “opt out” of. there are devices that have programmed in alternate ways to phone home even if you choose to intentionally not connect it to wifi. > If things can be automated, they should so we can choose exactly…

Yeah, I do order food home and I am actually never using a fridge myself, so you are right in that sense.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you then say that should be the goal for humans as a collective?

I don't think there should be one. I also think that everyone that has come up with their idea is misguided, and all that tried to implemented one was/is a authoritarian psychopath who should be stripped of any power as soon as their nature got revealed.

So then we float aimlessly, pointlessly and meaninglessly towards nothingness?

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#435

It's very fun to get angry at appliance makers - but if they actually made the appliances that we think they should, they would go broke because nobody (except a few of us) would buy them. This is how these newer "smart" appliances started taking over in the first place. As evidence, check out some of the manufacturers that do make higher-quality dumb appliances, like Subzero and Speed Queen and notice how little con…

Right. People seem to not want inflation to apply to appliances. E.g. a decent toaster in 1984 in the UK was about £18. That's £72 now. Only posh people spend £72 on a toaster. Most people I imagine want to pay no more than £40. Microwaves were around £200. That's £805 now. Nobody is spending £800 on a microwave.

Don't forget though that that toaster may have been made by people being paid a living wage, maybe even in the UK, and probably in the tens-hundreds of thousands, not millions of units produced as cheaply as possible by slave labor.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big note on this - Only the top loaders are available in the old-school "ultra-reliable" version that I think many want. Top loaders are more rough on clothes than front loaders. Many reputable repair techs claim that LG makes very solid and reliable front loaders which are more gentle on clothes than the speed queen front loaders. I was dead set on a speed queen top loader and then my wife started showing me this st…

I've used both a top loader (currently a speed queen) and a front loader washer each for more than a decade. I have many t-shirts that are 20+ years old. Any wear from the washer seems negligible in comparison to the wear from actually wearing the clothes. There's no discernible difference. But there's a HUGE difference in terms of ability to clean. If I'm out doing yardwork and I have a pair of jeans with deep mud s…

There isn't anything that fundamentally makes a top loader clean better than a front loader per se.

And while I don't doubt your SQ top loader with a full agitator does an absolutely fantastic job when compared to a modern front loader you have a big apples/oranges comparison problem.

And if you live in Austin, I would be willing to have a cloths cleaning video made against my 25 year old kenmore/frigidare front loader. :) And that is simply because (as of a couple years ago when I checked) my front loader uses closer to as much water as a modern top loader. It puts a good 6" of water in the tub and has a much smaller capacity that most of the modern front loaders because it has a very small opening and a fairly deep tub but is also narrower front to back. Given the agitators are about the same as the water depth, the cloths can be fully submerged/agitated out.

I to do a lot of outdoor work/repair (including that stupid washer's bearing), and things get dirty/greasy/etc and that washer has consistently amazed me just how good a job it does, and as a bonus when I got it I was also amazed at how much longer it seemed many of my cloths were lasting. I have 25 year old shirts that still look fairly new. So IMHO that washer has been a bit of a miracle worker, which is why despite being used at much greater duty cycle than your average home washer for the past 15 years (think ~15-20 loads a week, don't ask), every time it starts to need another bearing set, I upset my wife by fixing it. The parts cost like $30, and now that I've done it a few times its a ~2 hour job. Although, last time I sorta re-engineered the bearing set after discovering some new bearing technology better suited to being in a wet/soapy environment like a washer, so its possible I may have significantly extended how long it goes between bearing replacements (aka hopefully I never have to do it again). It also seems to spin significantly faster than many of the modern front loaders, which is seemingly at least part of the problem with the bearing loads.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#437
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but how often do you experience power outages or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me once. And how often does a fridge door open on its own? Most people don't need other people (or things) to remind them that they should tie their shoes before getting out. If you don't need that, I assume you know you should close the fridge door.

Yes, but how often do you experience power outages … I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me once. You must not live in Texas or California. or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? You're a lot more upbeat on current fridge reliability than I am. LG lost a class action suit regarding their junk "linear" compressors a few years ago, and despite multiple supposed revisions you can still find…

Its not just their linear compressors, its the fact that they use very thin aluminum tubing on the high side, and apparently have had assembly issues where weld material has splattered on the tubes, which after a bit of thermal cycling (or maybe its just galvanic corrosion) they start leaking.

I to had a LG refrigerator declared "unfixable" and bought back by LG, but I actually decided they were idiots and fixed it myself after having not only their local repair people fail to fix it, but the "expert" from LG's regional center come out and diagnose it. (It should be noted that he diagnosed the condenser, the only part not already replaced at that point, and that failed to fix it so, they declared it unfixable).

Turns out in my case, the leak was in the yoder loop, a modern trick for increasing the efficiency of a refrigerator by running a high pressure refrigerant line around the doors to avoid needing electric defrost loops (what pretty much every fridge made pre ~2005 or so has).

And since the yoder loop is embedded in the spray foam insulation between the exterior and interior of the fridge is is largely unrepairable because the insulation would have to be destroyed and somehow partially refilled, which wouldn't be possible without adding a bunch of access holes/etc to the exterior.

So, I bypassed it, as a "research project" before buying another fridge, something the LG folks told me wouldn't work, and the tech refused to do. Which funny enough i'm an EPA certified small appliance repair tech (don't ask! lol) so, it apparently is just up my alley. And guess what 5 years later is still going. I've had to manually defrost the ice maker fan once in that timeframe and it does tend to get some condensation build up on the bottom of the french doors, but nothing that wipeing it away every few days doens't solve.

As an additional bit of fun, this refrigerator has a steel condenser and both aluminum as well as copper tubing/fittings.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#438

All my appliances are mid-century or older. Parts are simple and easily fabricated if necessary. Having a restored 85-year-old refrigerator (compressor and refrigerant still original) in active use, it's amazing how efficient it actually is. It's manual defrost, but doesn't need defrosting all that often either. Reading about the failing condenser fan and compressor reminded me of these items, worth watching again: h…

You're seriously using a refrigerator from the 1930s?

1938 Frigidaire. Restored with new door gasket and insulation.

Apparently, I'm not the only one (mine looks cleaner than this, and is a bigger model): https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/13obhfp/my_gr...

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#439

All my appliances are mid-century or older. Parts are simple and easily fabricated if necessary. Having a restored 85-year-old refrigerator (compressor and refrigerant still original) in active use, it's amazing how efficient it actually is. It's manual defrost, but doesn't need defrosting all that often either. Reading about the failing condenser fan and compressor reminded me of these items, worth watching again: h…

> All my appliances are mid-century or older. Parts are simple and easily fabricated if necessary. Having a restored 85-year-old refrigerator (compressor and refrigerant still original) in active use, it's amazing how efficient it actually is. I don't think the word efficient means what you think it means. Have you ever measured their power consumption?

A little less than 300kWh/year. For a 9cft fridge, some fancy new ones use even more than that.

Re: Goodbye non-KISS appliances

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it kind of is by choice. Unless the author enjoys this type of work he could have easily bought a no-feature fridge that lasts for 10-15 years.

It was definitely a mistake. I had store credit to use and felt like using it all, but should of known better. FWIW I have a no-feature fridge now.

Thank you, hope it works for many years!
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