A fridge from 70 years ago has better features than the fridge I own now • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by DSMan195276 » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #131

DSMan195276 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is more that you can buy expensive fridges today that could last that long - people don't because they care more about spending less on a fridge.

> people don't because they care more about spending less on a fridge I don't think so. First of all, there are lots of quality improvements that could make life longer, at almost zero additional cost per unit. Also, repairability could be improved. Second, there is an ecconomic problem with information asymetry - while I know the pricetag, I have no idea what the life expectancy is. So you get https://en.m.wikipedia…

> I don't think so. First of all, there are lots of quality improvements that could make life longer, at almost zero additional cost per unit. Also, repairability could be improved.

I don't entirely disagree, but there's always going to be a weakest link when you're targeting a low price point. It doesn't seem to take a whole lot of research to find that better fridges with those issues fixed _are_ available if you're willing to spend a bit more, people commenting on this article even linked to some.

> The latter could be possible to fix if we mandated producers to publish "expected usage per lifetime" (MTBF) numbers and also show price/usage ratio to customers.

I support this idea, but I'd also say the numbers presumably would not be significantly different from the warranty already offered on these things. I feel like it's not much of a secret that the warranty is intended to last the minimum lifetime of the product and not more. If they were confident in their product lasting longer, they'd sell you a longer warranty.

I think there's also an unmentioned detail here, which is that many people probably won't own the same fridge for 20 or 30 years anyway - when you move, you commonly leave your fridge behind. There's not a huge incentive to buy an expensive fridge that could last a long time if you think it's likely you'll move before then anyway.

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

#462

Post by dublin » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 9:33 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #166

trwired wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is fine by me. I need a fridge to cool things down, oven to heat them up and TV to show moving pictures, all without access to wifi and other bells and whistles modern appliances come with. Just the basic stuff that those appliances could handle 20 years ago. More doesn't always translate to better.

20 years ago with fridges is a bit of a funny one because by then most had gotten rid of the nasty CFC's. But, even at that, it looks like today's fridges are _orders of magnitude_ more efficient to run than those from about 15-20 years ago. For an oven and hob, the basics haven't changed, but my previous flat had a $600 oven that was silent, leaked practically no heat, preheated in a couple of minutes and came with…

Utter Bullshit! Today's refrigerators are no more efficient than those from decades ago. In fact, the older, banned refrigerants are often more efficient, since their refrigerants were optimally designed and selected for maximum performance/efficiency in the first place! (And engineers were much better then, too. Really. Plus, I assure you that Thermodynamics has not changed in the interim!)

I'm sure my 35 y.o. Freon refrigerator is pretty much identically efficient to a modern one. The biggest difference is that mine is still running beautifully halfway through its 4th decade, while all the latest Chinese-sht-tech refrigerators will be unfixably dead in about five years at the outside. People should consider that* environmental and efficiency advantage!

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

#463

Post by rsynnott » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 9:36 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #370

rsynnott wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's far from perfect, of course, but there are high-end appliance manufacturers who do make very reliable appliances.

There is a curve. High end appliances don't have enough volume to shake out all the problems and fix them in the next design. Mid range does.

Possibly we're thinking of different degrees of high-end. I'm thinking Miele and similar; definitely very expensive, but relatively high volume. There's certainly a tier above who make stoves that cost more than a car, and your concern would certainly apply there.

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

#464

Post by sokoloff » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #366

potta_coffee wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not bullshit, my parents had the same fridge from when I was born until I graduated from college.

The claim was not that your parents’ fridge lasted 25 years, it was that appliances in general lasted 25 years. If that was true, manufacturers would have been advertising 25, or least 10, 15, 20 year warranties to win customers. Nobody putting their money where their mouth is is a better signal than anecdotal data.

My kitchen was remodeled (by the previous owners) in 1993. All of the appliances, except for the dishwasher, have not been replaced by us in 16 years of ownership and I believe they all date back to the 1993 remodel (based on serial numbers and general condition when we bought the place).

In that time, I've replaced the dishwasher in 2014, a spring on the door of the dishwasher in 2022, and a heating element in the defrost circuit of the 1993 fridge. That's an oven, a cooktop, a fridge, a trash compactor, and a garbage disposal that all have 30 years of service, with only the dishwasher having failed and two repairs. Their older fridge in the basement is still chugging along as well. That's 5/7 perfect, 1/7 with one minor repair, and 1/7 failed inside of 30 years. My parents built their place in 1999; of the kitchen appliances, only the microwave has been repaired. Their place before that, built in 1974, only the dishwasher replaced between 1974 and 1998 when they moved.

My conclusion is that dishwashers sucked and still suck, but that old appliances generally chug along for decades.

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

#465

Post by reichstein » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

bern4444 wrote: post #152

ethbr0 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster that still works flawlessly. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OfxlSG6q5Y They used a shielded bimetalic thermostat to measure the radiant heat coming from the toast surface , instead of a timer, to establish doneness (consistently toasting despite heating element variance) and implemented the mechanical lowering & raising of toast without a single motor (which is why 60+ year ol…

What if you only want 1 piece of toast and not two? Will it still automatically go down?

Only one of the holes has a trigger. You fill that last, or only.

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

#466

Post by snotrockets » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 10:08 PM UTC

quartz wrote: post #25

Wait is this actually better? It's well presented in the ad but: - that removable veggie holder in the door looks crazy heavy and super awkward to put back in place (lining up at a sharp angle while gripping likely slick sides) - you have to open the refrigerator door to get at the freezer - the door compartments are narrow and probably can't handle odd sized containers - the shelves have holes in them so anything th…

Not to mention that it has an on/off compressor, much less efficient than modern, inverter ones.

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

#467

Post by treeman79 » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 10:20 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #144

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a serious note, how heavy does an object have to be for gravitational lensing or bending to be noticeable with a naked eye? s/visible/noticeable s/noticeable/noticeable with a naked eye s/lensing/gravitational lensing

That you'd be able to see it with the naked eye? α = 4GM/((c^2)b), where b is the impact parameter[0]. Apparently human visual acuity is 0.3 milli-radians, so if b = 1 meter, that's approximately "the moon" (in at most a 1 meter radius volume)… …assuming I didn't mix up my units in this formula I never used before, though it feels about right given the Schwarzschild radius of the Earth is ~ centimetres. [0] never hea…

There is also Superman’s key. Made of neutronium.

https://dcmovies.fandom.com/wiki/Fortress_Key_(All-Star_Supe...

Last I tried to calculate (poorly), if you were to touch it. You liquify and be sucked into it just before contact.

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

#468

Post by mcpeepants » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 10:30 PM UTC

ethbr0 wrote: post #191

idlewords wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you cancel without a cancel button?

If you make a toast-related error, by inserting bread into the toaster and then deciding you don't actually want it toasted, you unplug the toaster. As the elements cool, your bread returns to you, unharmed.

> unharmed

harmed to a degree that is proportional to the toast-decision-making latency of the operator

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

#469

Post by taeric » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 10:32 PM UTC

smileysteve wrote: post #457

taeric wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. By most evidence, new machines should be lasting longer, all told. That so many people feel that is not happening seems to be interesting, in itself. Could be correct, I don't know.

And same in experience. At large, the doors that are getting opened and closed repeatedly by my kids are far far more likely to get broken than any others. Which leads to door seals that are not up to where they should be. And will not surprise me that we run those compressors harder than we would otherwise. Which will lead to those failing.

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

#470

Post by JohnFen » Mon, Jul 31, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

MostlyStable wrote: post #290

stickfigure wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived with two of these (at home growing up, and later via a roommate) and I hated both of them. The toast slot is too narrow. You can't heat a bagel - well, technically you can force it in there, but it won't come back out with some help from a utensil. They get flakey and you end up bouncing the toast a dozen times to get it to lower. Yes, I know there's an adjustment, but it's finicky and annoying. It's a toa…

I'm pretty sure that the reason they stopped getting made was influx of dramatically cheaper toasters, at a time when the idea of paying top dollar for premium kitchen tools was not very common. I'm also pretty sure that fixing all of your issues would not be hard with a modern re-design. It would just result in a ~$100+ toaster. The crazy thing is is that _there are more expensive toasters than that_, that are basic…

Toasters are one of the more obvious appliances to show how bad things have become. Outside of getting one of those conveyor-belt continuous restaurant toasters, I simply cannot find a new toaster at any price point that does a good job of making toast.

Even low-end toasters from the '60s outperform high-end toasters these days.