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And it will use as much energy as everything else in the house combined.
I wonder how true that is. Does it come down to effective insulation? I also thought the old refrigerants were more efficient but really bad for the environment. The only other factor is motor/pump.
Compressors are variable and much more efficient. More efficient and variable speed fan motors along with more efficient blade design. Insulation now is drastically better than glass wool of the past. Electronics are able to be integrated in order to provide more fine grain control and overall design has been improved just due to efficiency standards being placed on a bright yellow sticker. In the past design and component choices never really considered efficiency, while efficiency doesn’t always win out it’s a weighted factor and influences the overall engineering and design in ways that just didn’t happen before efficiency regulations came about.
Insulation tech is better, yes, but also the insulation of a 40 year old fridge is by now totally fucked.
Please explain how fridge insulation degrades with age.
I would assume it’s made of something chemically stable and protected from the environment by the fridge casing.
The doors, rubbers, etc definitely degrade very fast. The walls probably not so fast, but the casing also gets beaten up.
Rubber seals wear out yes, but how does painted steel, unless the fridge is at the bottom of a lake?
Nice, it’s super interesting how far we’ve progressed.
Here’s a good article. From 1970-s to 2014 power use of refrigerators decreased by 4 times. My modern European fridge only uses 270kWh per year, which is even further decrease.
You really do not want to still use a fridge from 1970-s.
Edit: changed Wh to kWh.
I think you meant 270kWH instead of 270WH.
Yes, my bad.
Nooo, thats a couple of mW, no way. Maybe its a typo and you neant daily with a bit more than 10W power, even that is fairly low. The last time I measured ours it was about 30W average… (also europe, about 10yo)
That’s a typo, my bad. Fixed my comment.
Remember, friends don’t let friends buy Samsung or LG appliances!
(Also, long lasting appliances still exist, you just have to be ready to pay the price, otherwise get something from the Maytag family)
Anything from BSH group is good from what I’ve heard online from other netisens
Which is
- Bosch
- Siemens
- Neff
- Gaggernau
Miel are also good especially for vacuum cleaners
All of this information I remember from reddits buy it for life subreddit which really should have a lemmy version
*Miele ;)
And yeah, mid level is very good too!
We’ve got one of their pull around vacuums. Superior product, best vacuum I’ve ever had in reliability and features.
Buy it for life is on lemmy! Idk how to link it, but search for it and it should pop up
@x4740N@lemm.ee @FrowingFostek@lemmy.world @@Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
The Community on slrpnk.net seems to be the biggest and most active, the second biggest is on sh.itjust.works.
and for linking you can do
\[Name of the link](https://nameoftheinstance.net/c/nameofthecommunity)or you can just do !buyitforlife@slrpnk.net so you can visit using you own home instancehave a nice day! :-)
Thanks
I second this motion.
For people interested an extensive report by French appliance store after sale service. It gives the reliability of each brand. There is a note for the reliability, ease and cost of repair.
It’s only in French unfortunately : https://www.darty.com/achat/services/barometre-sav/barometre.html
citing Rossmann?
There’s some appliance breakdown vids (idk if Rossman is one of them) but the gist is Samsung and LG like to put cheap plastic parts in high wear locations which inevitably fail.
Fridges are dead simple appliances. A compressor and evaporator coils with a temperature sensor. There’s absolutely no reason they shouldn’t outlast you and everyone you love.
It’s insane these “premium” brands are built to fall like they do.
Real premium brands do last, but not everyone wants to pay 10k for a fridge
I mean, having to replace a fridge every few years because it constantly breaks in a way that’s uneconomical to repair will cost you a lot more in the long run.
That’s the thing, it’s more expensive being poor.
You’d be better off getting a 2nd hand quality brand from a wealthy suburb when they remodel their kitchen every 5ish years or so.
Sure it costs more in the long run, but the majority of people live paycheck to paycheck, do you think they want to go and pay 25k for a full set of appliances just so they’ll save money over 30 years when they can barely afford to pay for their basic needs?
Even second hand, they’re still way more expensive than the basic shit from economical brands…
Bit of a straw-man argument there: firstly you don’t need to spend that all in one hit; the break even point is a lot sooner than 30 years; and lastly, paying to replace cheap shot that breaks quickly with more shit that breaks quickly is one of the traps that keeps prone living paycheck to paycheck.
My two examples below:
Samsung dryer died after 3yrs, out of warranty, broke in our 20s, couldn’t afford to replace it. Lucked out finding an ANCIENT Miele condenser dryer on Marketplace for $50. Not only did that thing last us another 3 years before it started tripping the circuit breaker, it was cheaper to run than the old unit and ended up saving us enough money that we were then able to invest in a brand new Bosch unit that’s still going today (7+ years).
LG refrigerator died in a little over 3 years, due to a known compressor fault; uneconomical repair even though it was still under warranty, so we got a full manufacturer’s refund. We bit the bullet, did our research and went with a Made in Japan Hitachi model. It’s always outlasted the LG, and is again more energy efficient that we’re saving a few bucks a month on electricity.
I will reiterate; it’s expensive being poor. Buying a better quality second-hand unit rather than a new ‘commodity brand’ appliance is just one of the small ways to make things a little less expensive.
So “You live paycheck to paycheck? Just find cheap stuff until you decide to bite the bullet and get a loan to buy something that will last!”
78% of people in the USA live like that.
Checking what a fridge cost you in 1980 in an old Sears catalog, you’d be paying $4000 today accounting for inflation.
But people compare their reliability to 1000$ fridges today
America’s stagnation issue
An insulated box with a decent compressor does not cost 10k. Making a compressor that fails after 2 years is actually hard to do, something both LG and Samsung spent time and money to achieve.
Consider, for example, that nearly every car manufactured with an AC. Which is exactly the same tech as a fridge. Yet you rarely end up needing to replace the compressor on your car. You might need to recharge it or clean it, but not replace the compressor. 10k of your car price isn’t the HVAC.
Just saying, that’s the price for premium brands like Sub Zero or Thermador, but they have their reputation and it’s very very good
There are premium brands that do well, but there are also non premium brands that do pretty well. GE, for example, tends to make fairly reliable product (even today) for roughly the same price point of samsung/lg.
Premium brands are not industrial brands. Goal of premium brands is to be as expensive as possible.
That’s the problem. A lot of those high-end, expensive appliances are built just as shitty as the low-end, basic models. The difference is just some bells and whistles and a higher price tag.
I have no problem paying extra for a higher quality, better built appliance. But the challenge is differentiating those from the low quality, built as cheaply as possible appliances that have just been marked up with a premium price tag.
At least when I buy the cheap, shitty model, I get what I paid for.
I often repeat to my parents and grand parents, that “expensive doesn’t mean good quality”. Well, mostly to mom and granny.
The difference is just some bells and whistles and a higher price tag.
Bells and whistles that sell your personal data.
Sub Zero, Thermador… Looks industrial to you?
He’s predominately Apple product repair guy, but he’s also right to repair advocate.
And he likes to rant about brands that are generally against consumer rights (and common sense).
I’ve got no idea who that is so no, I wasn’t knowingly quoting them
he’s involved in right to repair and has youtube channel where hem mostly talks about how brands try to avoid questions on repairability and sustainability
I like our used Samsung dryer. For basic drying. It has all those other bells and whistles that I don’t care about, but it’s done well for years. That damn finished drying tune though…with the option to turn it off or…not turn it off. omg
I like the washer and not the dryer. Had the set for 4 years. No issues with the washer but the dryer literally leaks lint. The trap doesn’t catch it and it gums up my vents in 2 months.
Good to know. I regularly pull it out and clean the vent with a vent extension brush anyway, once I got a house with a long vent where all sorts of things can settle. Huge fire hazard that most home owners don’t even think about. It seems to be catching the lint it ought to be, but perhaps this goes back to the idea that even in a line of product you can have good and bad machines made.
I wish I had friends. It would’ve prevented me from buying the shitty dishwasher that last less than 3 years.
7 years ago I bought a brand new Samsung washer and dryer. After I hooked up everything for the washer (correctly), when I set it to hot water, cold would come out, and vice versa. Had it taken aware and Lowe’s replaced it with another brand new one. This time, the two guys who dollied in the firstly one, I had them hook everything up. Exact same thing happened. Hot for cold, cold for hot. These two guys were flabbergasted. They couldn’t believe two brand new washers were having the same defect. Same two guys brought another one the next day. Finally, the third one worked correctly.
I haven’t had any problems since. But still, ridiculous it took three tries to get a functioning washer.
Moreso, the fridge will stop working in two years cause that is when their subscription cloud service to access your fridge will be updated with firmware that is no longer compatible.
My fridge doesn’t have a TPM chip and won’t upgrade to FridgeOS 11.
Also the required app will no longer be supported
Sure it will work forever, but it also never really worked right in the first place. Those are definitely the fridges where one section freezes and other areas are almost room temp
People also have survivorship bias with these things. Sure your refrigerator might have lasted forever but quite a few others did not. There is a reason why appliance repair places existed and were much more common than today.
While that is true, items are purposely made unrepairable now. You don’t have right to repair movements because John Deere and Apple devices are so much more complex to repair for common failure points. You have those movements emerging because companies make it extremely difficult in the name of profit or style. With equally skilled (and due to the internet more informed) and capable repair personnel not being able to even partake in the process.
They’ve also gotten more complex over time, increasing difficulty of repair.
That’s to increase perceived obsolescence, where it still works okay but the bells and whistles broke. Also why they put pretty colorful thread on fancy truck seats. Your ass wears it off and makes an $80k truck look ratty.
Right but often unnecessarily so. Nobody asked for “smart” fridges or washing machines.
Exactly this!! The function of appliances hasn’t changed hardly at all since their inception: washers wash, dryers dry, refrigerators cool, ovens/stoves heat. No “smart” capabilities necessary, or at least nothing that simple mechanical controls and switches couldn’t handle.
Plus they’re cheaper, relative to repair professionals’ labor.
If a new refrigerator costs the same as 100 hours of skilled labor, then a 10 hour repair job (plus parts that cost the same as 1/10 of a refrigerator) will be economically feasible.
But if a new fridge costs the same as 20 hours of skilled labor, and the more complex parts come in more expensive assemblies, then there’s gonna be more jobs don’t pass a cost benefit threshold. As a category, refrigerator repair becomes unfeasible, and then nobody gets skilled in that field.
yeah thats because they are made intentionally uneconomical and difficult to repair now
people underestimate how useful and frequently necessary icepicks used to be.
I bet there is a Technology Connections video on this.
If I remember correctly there is.
There is no problem in sticking second compressor wirhout greatly reducing fridge lifespan.
Survivorship bias
Yeah, but can you survive a hydrogen bomb blast in a 1980s fridge? No, you need a 1950s fridge for that.
Thnx Indiana
We called the dog Indiana.
It’s the lead lining.
Remember in Australia, if you’re persistent enough, you could get this replaced under Australian Consumer Law, if something breaks in an unreasonable amount of time (outside of warranty, even). Considering fridges can easily last for 10 years, anything well within that should be fairly easy (but require many, many emails and threatening to taken them to your local small claims) to get replaced.
That is if you can do without a fridge in the meantime 😅
This is not legal advice.
While consumer laws in the US generally suck, there are a few stores that have amazing return policies and go out of their way to please customers, Costco being one of them.
I know a guy who brought back his 10-year-old broken plasma flatscreen TV without a receipt. They replaced it with a new model, no questions asked.
Costco no longer has those return policies on electronics specifically because people abused them.
Yeah. That’s why we can’t have nice things. The US should consider extended warranty rules similar to the EU. But that’s probably too “socialist” or whatever.
Cuts in to the bottom line profits. Can’t have that. The shareholders are more important than your 91 day old bricked TV.
My TV came with a five year warranty - two year manufacturer, two years Costco, and one year from my Costco credit card.
My washer and dryer got seven. Same deal, but Costco was offering an extra extended warranty plan for free.
The best part is that they design their warranties to run consecutively instead of concurrently. Unfortunately, Citi got rid of the extended warranty with the Costco credit cards about a year and a half ago.
For real, we bought a fridge in November and it is already breaking
Back when my dad bought a new whirlpool fridge, it didn’t take long for the LEDs inside to start failing.
Today’s products are built to just barely cross some finish line and not a day longer. It’s bad for you, and bad for the environment.
Samsung fridge had the ice maker stop working 5 times in a span of 2 years. The tray mechanism inside would break so often. I actually started buying replacements from AliExpress and treated it as a consumable product.
Samsung appliances are garbage
I just replaced a Samsung fridge after about 6 years when I bought it new.
Never again will I but Samsung appliances.
This is what they expected you to do
Shout out to our 30 year old Miele washing machine
That will cost you a shit load of energy does it?
I wouldn’t say it uses an unreasonable amount of power to run. I may be wrong, but a water heater and some pumps can’t be more efficient other than insulation so it wouldn’t waste power to heat the surrounding air.
Modern washing machines auto-balance the load, which negates the need for the massive weights you get inside older washing machines for stability. The motors in older ones also have to work harder because of this since it is trying to spin an unbalanced drum. I also assume modern ones have more efficient brushless motors etc.
The load balancing thing definitely applies to the front loading washing machines we have here, no idea about top-loading.
Ours is front loading, and I’m sometimes scared to take a dump in the same room when the thing is spinning full speed, as the dryer on top of it bounces and shakes aggressively, most likely due to the lack of auto balancing. I guess I didn’t think of the inefficiencies there
Your washing machine is heating the water? It’s not hooked up to the hot water supply? Maybe that’s a Europe thing or something
I’m pretty sure it’s a Europe thing too, as the washing machine and dishwasher heat their own water. Didn’t know the US did it differently
Funny coincidence, I’ve recently watched a video by TechnologyConnections on dishwashers and thought about the hot water connection thing. Here in Europe our dishwashers are usually connected to hot water, whereas the washing machine is only connected to cold… wondered about that difference, too.
That’s super interesting! I currently live in Norway, but I used to live in Lithuania, and for both countries I can say that it’s common for dishwashers and washing machines to heat their own water. It’s interesting to see how different countries have solved the “get hot water” problem for appliances.
not energy, but def water. modern wash machines are extremely water efficient. That may result in energy savings if you’re using hot water. Modern detergent doesn’t really need hot water though.
Interesting, never thougth that would be the issue.
In 2016 my parents bought a new microwave oven and gave their old one to me. That new microwave is broken now and the one I got is still operating the same as it did in the 90s.
You probably forgot to pay the monthly subscription of your refrigerator.
