What do we fix in a disposable society?

Thought I had today when the plastic drive on the top of our blender shattered while I was making a smoothie. I had a new part ordered a few minutes later, plus commentary from others who had had the exact same problem. So, in other words, it's easier to repair simple appliances & objects than ever before, yet we still trash so much due to simple failures.

Yeah I throw plenty out, but I've still repaired ovens, blenders, dryers, fans, air conditioners, heaters, etc. What have you repaired? Should we look to fix first, or submit to our consumerist overlords?

I think a lot of it comes from the tinkering spirit. I'm very enthusiastic about working on my own vehicles, so other things stem from that. My crowning achievement, at least in my mind, is rebuilding my great grandfather's 80+ year old Craftsman circular saw. I even managed to rework and keep the old cloth cord. That's my single favorite tool.

I think I've repaired everything in a normal house outside of entertainment electronics (TV*, DVD players, etc.) and a microwave oven. Just a couple of weeks ago, I diagnosed and replaced one of the two heating elements in my water heater. While I had it torn down, I flushed out many, many years worth of hard water calcium build-up. ick.


* - Like many of us, I grew up in the era of the gigantic RCA console television. I remember having to help load up my parent's or grandparent's TV and taking it down to the repair shop to have the tube replaced. The only reason my grandparent's don't still have theirs today is the guy that owned the last TV repair shop in the area died.

I fix what can be fixed. Light in the dryer, tho it took many much searching to find a place where I could buy just the lightbulb and not the whole lamp assembly.

I've put legs back on chairs. Replaced seals on toilets. Repaired a recalcitrant scanner when the scan head wouldn't move (just needed cleaned and lubricated). Repaired hardware on drawers that were stuck. Gotten broken doors back on their hinges. That sort of thing.

Oh, and small appliances, it's amazing how often the problem winds up being a broken connection that can be easily put back together.

It really depends on whether fixing the item in question is within my ability. It's rare for me to throw electronics away, as I'm able to fix those, but if it's an appliance or clothing I'll just replace it.

For some reason, I'm really, really, really hard on clothes. Thank God I have a wife that enjoys fixing them.

So am I, though for some odd reason the first thing to go is always the crotch seams on my jeans. It's kind of annoying, I mean, I can deal with ripped cuffs, but I can't walk around with my junk on display.

Pants aren't my weak spot. Shirts. For over a decade, I've worn button-down shirts nearly exclusively. I'm bad about working on something and snagging/breaking a button. My wife is slowly getting me into golf shirts.

It would be nice if more things were built to last with minimal maintenance and repairs, but it's cheaper to design things to only be assembled once and never repaired in any major way that last a few years and then crap out, and more profitable when you have to buy a new one. Even my beloved jeep, which with its basic steel tub and full length frame sitting on solid axles, is a much more solid and repair-friendly platform than your average disposable unit-body econobox, still suffers in many ways from this design philosophy. There really isn't a mass-produced vehicle that's done correctly, in my humble opinion.

I can't even fault the manufacturers too much. Not when demand is driven mostly by shortsighted people who care more about then cheap, instant gratification of something shiny and new every couple of years than they care to bother with the idea that they might save themselves money in the long run by owning something that lasts.

Yes, people are influenced heavily by the constant onslaught of advertising that would have you believe you're worthless if you don't/can't buy the newest and trendiest turd in a brightly-colored plastic shell the moment it hits the lots and the shelves. Influenced to the point of snobbishly looking down on anyone who doesn't enslave themselves to it. But you don't have to care. You can ignore the mindless consumer culture. And while you have a choice, you're not a victim. Not even when creditors were all too eager to see you rack up so much debt that your grandchildren will be retiring on ramen noodles and balogna.

My Sister and BIL recently had their dryer crap out. Service call guy came out, said it was a $450 fix. They balked, he left. BIL did a little research on teh Interwebs, found out the problem is often caused by worn out springs inside the supposedly broken part. Ordered the two springs for a total of $26, installed them himself in < 30 minutes with help of a youtube "how to" video, and....PRESTO! Dryer now works again!!

There is definitely a feeling of independence when you know how stuff works, and how to fix it. My dad related a story recently of how when he was visiting my sister and her metrosexual, skinny jean wearing boyfriend in Dallas. He was home alone with the nancy boy and the guy remarks that his A/C doesn't work in his car. Being bored, dad went to look at it. One trip to Auto Zone later, and he's putting freon in the car, A/C is working great. Literally, this was like showing gunpowder to aborigines, this might as well have been magic to the guy. He was in shock.

The best though was my mom's pasta maker. It extruded pasta through various interchangeable dies, it was cheap plastic and did not take the pressure well. Mom threw it down in disgust. Dad sees this and takes the appliance out to the barn. When he returns it has two 1/2 inch thick steel rings holding the die in place with some 3/8 bolts. The rings were John Deere green.

There's method to their madness:

many customers think it's it's the solonoid but it turns out to be the starter, and they have to turn in the solonoid for credit and get the starter. Or maybe I have that vice-versa. Regardless, the store wasts so much money on handling + shipping the returns they would rather sell you the starter with a solonoid and be done with it. It also saves the vehicle owner time.

I would just replace both and spare myself the extra trip anyway.

Come to think of it, I kind of just assumed the starter I ordered would come with its own solenoid. A little late to worry about it now, since it should arrive some time this afternoon.

My new starter.

One of my friends used a youtube how to to fix the Ring of Death on his X-Box.

Reminds me I'm so pumped about ordering my new cooling fan later today.
Only costs me 1/3 the auto-parts store price! I have a Chilton's from the library and all I need are Walmart jack-stands.

Yeah, reman starters come with the solenoid anyways, so I'm not seeing the point. Of course, also deal with starters where the solenoid is the size of the starter in my Camry.

Double penetration.

I didn't buy any remanufactured crap. Amazon claims this Bosch unit is all new. It's why I've been riding a bike home from work this week instead of just fixing the damned starter Tuesday night. Everything available locally was rebuilt, and I don't want to be dealing with this shit again in a couple of years.

How true! And it doesn't even have to be difficult stuff.

When the Mrs. & I first started dating, she lived at home w/ her parents. My FIL is not mechanical in the least. One day after about a month of dating, I went over there. They had a screen door with the typical air-piston thingy on it, and it took For-EV-er to close, and would only get to within a couple inches of "shut" before stopping. She complained that it'd been that way as long as she could remember, and it drove her crazy. I reached up, twisted the little adjustment screw on the end of the piston, and within a minute had it adjusted so that it closed properly in a reasonable time. Her eyes lit up and she looked at me with awe. Literally! I definitely scored me some "man points" that night.

Sadly, the more high tech/counter-intuitive technology gets the less the average man can fix it. Scientists say we evolved as a species working with medium sixed objects in three dimensions at a medium pace.

This seems to be my comfort zone most of the time, though cars kick my ass almost all time.

That's because hippies get into the law and have us overtaking the plumbing for fuel economy and lower emissions, making it more difficult to maintain and the parts more expensive in the process. I'll be sticking with my 20 year old engine design until it either explodes into little pieces or someone takes it from me by force.

Personally, I know how to replace light bulbs!

The real problem is that few of the people who design things these days are the kind of people who get their hands dirty. Anyone who's stuck their paws inside a modern engine bay can tell you that there's almost always a better place to locate something in a difficult spot than where the engineer (who has never worked on an assembly line in all probability) put it.

Furthermore they're paid enough that they can afford to replace the car before problems begin to develop, so they have no idea what its like to deal with the crap when something goes wrong with it. Until you get engineers who have to suffer the consequences of their mistakes, you're not going to see a change in things.

BLUF: Samurai Appliance Repairman.

When I was in Hawaii my refrigerator shit the bed. Since my landlord was so poor he was living in a van while he rented out his apartment, the fridge was out of warranty--and was fairly spendy--and I didn't want to eat out for the next couple months, I did some online research and found you could swap out a board in the back of the fridge for 1/10th of the cost of a new fridge. I told the guy and he did some further research and found out that for 1/10th of the cost of a new board, he could solder a new capacitor onto the old board (including the cost of a cheap Radio Shack soldering iron and some flux). So we fixed a $1,200+ refrigerator for under $12.

I saw or read something on this some years back. How we live in a "disposable" society, especially when it comes to electronics. It's cheaper to buy new than pay someone to repair what you already have.

I'm probably going to end up with a new computer monitor because the old one has shit the bed and a replacement will probably cost less than getting the old one (15 months old ) repaired.

ohhh I hate that shit.

I understand the repairman has to get paid but come on.......

For $450 you can buy a new dryer.

I've actually gotten quite handy over the years. Part of it is thanks to the internet so I can find stuff but also working at Home Depot was a good thing too. Learned a lot there.

I've fixed the dishwasher, kitchen sink, garbage disposal, the water heater (heating elements), light fixtures.

The only thing I didn't fix was the washer and dryer. They were both under warranty and the repair was free at the time. Of course the dryer finally gave out again out of warranty so we just went ahead and bought a new one as I wasn't looking forward to that beast.

When I had my truck I replaced the starter and the belt. It was rather easy. Amazing how much people will pay just for those two things.

On my Nissan I was scratching my head wondering who designed the engine the way they did. A two year old? Even after removing the parts to get to the belt it was a PITA to get the belt in there and get it right. Mechanic wanted $150 to change the belt. Doing it myself cost just the price of the belt. (about $35)

My next "adventure" will be changing the oil on my own. Just gotta find out where I can take the old oil first before I try it.

Again, some insight into the repair game:
the profit margin can be pretty slim. You have to bid/estimate parts and labor, which can be tricky. Thus, you can lose money on some repair undertakings.
To come out ahead in the end, you make it up in volume. The cheap, easy jobs are our bread and butter.

For example, the brainiac engineers + bean-counters (don't know who I hate more) have a set matrix saying it takes X amount of time to replace Y part, and that's all I can charge. But there may be parts A,B, and C in the way that have to be removed first, so now it takes longer. Obviously a fuse may take much less time, but you charge X labor because that's how the matrix is set up, and it's "in stone" and monitored by computer.

Strangely enough I'm about to pick up a new heating element for my tumble dryer this afternoon.