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A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

mstdn.social

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Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#451

Post by maccard »

sokoloff wrote: post #443
maccard wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 15-20 year old fridges are about 35% less energy efficient than the best modern fridges, not 100x I apologise that you took orders of magnitude literally. I'll settle for an entire order of magnitude really. I think it's _way_ more than 35%, though. > It looks like very efficient fridges today use about 400kWh per year. Those are the best (not the average). Where did you get that number from? Here's [0] a $220 frid…

I Googled "most efficient refrigerator 2023" and landed on https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/most-energy-efficient-refrig... I then Googled "refrigerator annual energy consumption 2000" and landed on https://blog.arcadia.com/much-electricity-refrigerator-uses/ BTW, your link [0] is to a mini-fridge (without a freezer section) , not a full-size fridge. It claims 132 liter capacity, while a full-size fridge tends to be 5…

132L isn't a "mini" fridge, it's an under counter fridge. 700L is... utterly enormous and I don't think I've ever seen a 700L fridge in real life. Most of the fridges I'm finding on AO are in the 1-200 kWh range, honestly

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#452

Post by vineyardmike »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #447
vineyardmike wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just look at the sticker price + features and call it a day This thread makes it clear most people think all models are unreliable or that a consumer can’t search based on reliability. If you accept everything is equally unreliable or unreliability is equally unknown, what else but price and features would you use to make a decision?

If reliability is a true concern, then go commercial. If not, spend weeks researching. Cross reference text and video reviews from many sources, look into the technologies manufacturers use, look at feedback from people working in the repair industry, etc. Then, maybe you can get something a bit better than average. At the very least you'll avoid the true lemons.

Well thanks for telling me this. My point was that reliability could be a true concern, but if people believe they can’t shop for it, they won’t bother.

You kinda proved my point too - your suggested steps to follow take weeks, and end in a “maybe you’ll get something a bit better than average”. That truly sounds like “don’t bother even if you want it”.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#453

Post by moritz »

hoosieree wrote: post #292
epolanski wrote: post #22

And how much power did it consume? What were the materials used for those fridges and paint? How much did they weight? How stable was the temperature in the freezer and refrigerator? Did those fridges had any mechanism to avoid frost formations? How much did they cost? Point is, the needs of a fridge barely changed in 70 years, the only real expectation we had was that they would become cheaper to buy and run and eas…

These are valid points, yet anecdotally it seems like modern fridges are less reliable and require more frequent replacement. Old fridges were "inefficient" because they didn't have an integrated variable speed motor and control board. But modern fridges seem to suffer a critical failure of some mysterious component 2 months after their warranty expires. This component can only be fixed by replacing the entire contro…

I mean I don’t know how serious you are, but I am when I say I have a list in my notes of “appliances I might eventually need someday and should buy when I have spare cash before they won’t be available without a computer anymore”.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#455

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

dustincoates wrote: post #335
BeetleB wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to fly from LA to NY with these amenities. Will Emirates fly me there?

You're not getting a shower or a stand up bar, but the rest, sure: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/where-to-find-lie-flat-seat... (I even had a nice salmon meal on my last business flight between Austin to LAX, in fact, which seemed opulent, but I wasn't complaining!)

This sort of quality of life bump for the few pales compared to the huge improvement for the many if we only accepted that it was just a coincidence that 9/11 happened with planes.

Cities, especially metro stations, malls and stadiums are much more dense and packed than planes are and yet we are much more confident about getting in there than we are about planes

Doesn’t make any logical sense

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#456

Post by Night_Thastus »

vineyardmike wrote: post #452
Night_Thastus wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If reliability is a true concern, then go commercial. If not, spend weeks researching. Cross reference text and video reviews from many sources, look into the technologies manufacturers use, look at feedback from people working in the repair industry, etc. Then, maybe you can get something a bit better than average. At the very least you'll avoid the true lemons.

Well thanks for telling me this. My point was that reliability could be a true concern, but if people believe they can’t shop for it, they won’t bother. You kinda proved my point too - your suggested steps to follow take weeks, and end in a “maybe you’ll get something a bit better than average”. That truly sounds like “don’t bother even if you want it”.

That's a fair point. If there was an easy "reliability score" slapped via a sticker onto every appliance, and it was reliable, then yes, consumers might care a lot more - especially for the more expensive ones.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#457

Post by smileysteve »

taeric wrote: post #90
marricks wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do to your fridges??? I'm in my 30's and have never had to replace a fridge. Never had a "modern" fridge except as a kid. All looked like low budget fridges from the 80's or 90's.

Quality of power supply to your house will almost certainly be one of the bigger factors in how long things last. Combined with standard stochastic behavior, I'd expect anecdotes of both kinds.

Re: Power; Digital Inverters, variable compressor technology are recent in the last decade and should reduce compressor failure from invalid state; More insulation added over the last 3 decades should reduce compressor run time, further reducing failure.

IMO, most "failures" are from failure to replace relays and door seals.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#458

Post by VirusNewbie »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #34

70 years ago a fridge would cost $250-$400 - about a months salary, that's about $4k in todays money. If you pay $4k for a fridge instead of $400 today you can get one with a fair amount of gadgets too.

My fridge is like 10k but it has massive design flaws

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#459

Post by topspin »

rsynnott wrote: post #284
topspin wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An anecdote... Bought a Sony receiver around June 2021. The thing has barely had time to get dusty and its never been over ~20W. It's already dead, or dying at least. The power supply caps are bad and it power cycles itself when it tries to drive the speakers. It's not a high end model; I'm not an audiophile trying to get 0.001% THD at 10KWs. But lunching itself 25 months into a 24 month warranty... wtf.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve - if it's going to break, statistically it'll probably do so in the first few years. Have you tried bringing it back to where you bought it? Depending on where you live, failing after 25 months may not be okay, regardless of what the warranty says.

> Have you tried bringing it back to where you bought it?

No. And the thought of having to deal with them, whoever they are, makes my skin crawl. I'd rather eat the entire cost of it twice than do that.

Re: A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now

#460

Post by ethbr0 »

stickfigure wrote: post #402
MostlyStable wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not even close to the biggest advantage. The biggest advantage is the sensor instead of a timer for how long to toast. If I had to pick one advantage, it would be that one. The fact that it also means that the raising/lowering is automatic is gravy in my opinion.

Have you actually owned one of these machines? They do not, in my experience (two different units over many years) toast more reliably than other toasters. The primitive analog "sensor" just isn't that accurate and a simple timer actually turns out to be pretty effective.

I've yet to get a bad piece of toast out of mine, in comparison to other toasters I've owned.

The lack of bagel-width is annoying, but widening the slot on a redesign shouldn't impact any other components.

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