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Comment by matwood | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. My washer and dryer are close to 20 years old. They each have a few buttons, and the 'computers' are mostly mechanical (think egg timer). I'm dreading when they break because anytime I have looked for simple, basic models like I have they no longer seem to exist.

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My dryer uses a heat pump similar to refrigeration technology which allows it to dry clothes at a lower energy usage level because it's more efficient than heated air. It's also a condensing dryer so it doesn't spray hot wet lint air out of the side of my house, and has a drain tube I can run straight into my drain pipe next to my washer so I don't have to dump out the water collector every few loads.

While I'm generally a fan of simple appliances in concept, there are several significant changes that have occurred in the last 20 years you might want to just peruse.

As an aside, my dryer has wifi, but I only ever use that feature just to alert me on my phone that the loads are complete. I've never gotten that shitty software to actually start a load successfully. Not even upset about it, I didn't buy it for the wifi.

The internet of things is useless but don't let that hold you back from finding some really efficient modern technology.

Another advantage of a heat pump dryer is that it doesn’t get as hot as a regular one, which means it’s a lot safer for your clothes.

I just bought one and you can even dry wool clothes in it without shrinkage. It’s also dead simple to use.

For wool nothing beats laying it flat under good old sun or wind. The tumbling of a washing machine or tumbler will just make felt out of it.

When I was shopping for a dryer I compared the running costs of heat pump dryers, condenser dryers and a regular waste-the-hot-air dryer. The payback time for energy efficiency was around 2,500 loads for condenser and 4,000 loads for heatpump. That's with New Zealand's fairly high power prices.

Condenser dryers are pretty slow, however, so I'm not sure it's a good solution for average people. They're nice when you don't have good infrastructure in place for a vented model, though.

I bought a combined washer/condenser dryer.

It usually took 3 - 5 hours to wash and dry a load, but it was ideal as a working solo Dad, I could put a load on before work, and it would be dry when I came home. Then I could put a load on before bed and it'd be dry in the morning.

Not sure who the average person is, but if they have a job, I found that very convenient.

Trading convenience for environment isn't a good solution for average people? Then we're fucked.

Thinking that trading convenience for environment is going to work is why we aren't seeing change.

In the European Union the most inefficient devices are simply banned. (In some cases, I don't keep up-to-date with consumer appliances.)

For tumble driers, scroll to the annex of https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

"From 1 November 2015:

— for condenser household tumble driers the energy efficiency index (EEI) shall be less than 76,

— for condenser household tumble driers, the weighted condensation efficiency shall be not lower than 70 %."

(And then a definition of what that means.)

Well, then we're fucked... because lots of things that are more convenient in the short term (energy-sucking appliances, plastic packaging, industrial agriculture, fossil fuels, you name it) will contribute to destroying the environment in the (not-so-)long term.

Also most top loading combined models are like this.

Oh of course, I need this to dry my clothes I will not wear for days right now!! How silly to have to wait 2 hours instead of 1 hour

It's more like 2.5 hours versus 40 minutes, and not everyone is a bachelor who only has to wash & dry their own clothes.

I'm convinced my washer is magic. I put the clothes in and press start. It spins them around once or twice, figuring out how heavy they are. Then it tells me how much detergent to add. I do that. It starts washing the clothes. It even has a heat pump mode that slowly (very, very, very slowly -- over an entire day) dries the clothes for the few times I can't hang them. The damn things has lots of buttons, but it knows I have no freaking clue. "Let's go stupid human. Just press the start button. You know you want to!" I like my washer :-) So far in 5 years, absolutely no problem.

It's a front loading Panasonic in case anyone is interested.

That’s the kind of appliance I can get behind.

The washing machine in my house does something similar, if somewhat less smart: put clothes in, tell it what kind of materials they are, it rotates a few times, figures out the weight and distribution then starts and tells you how long the wash will be. Certainly wish it had a heat pump mode.

When my washer from 1988 (I checked) started having issues, I thought, "These are almost entirely mechanical given the age. I ought to be able to ferret things out myself."

I purchased the repair manual and gambled on the parts that I thought were the problem, plus a couple of cheap parts on either side of where I thought the problem might be. I was able to disassemble the washer, swap out what I thought needed swapping out, and I was done. Worked fine.

A nice used Bosch washer is like $100 (and thats in an expensive country). Fixing some things are nice, but some are not worth.

In expensive/rich countries, used quality items in good condition are cheap. People prefer buying new and often get rid of old things that still work.

In poor countries, people don't buy new things as much, often are of lower quality and have less apprehension buying used if it's a good deal.

Speed Queen. Made Ripon, Wisconsin. We have a small farm and I can say they are amazing. I believe they still make washer/dryer combos with mechanical/analog switches if you want them. I haven't looked in 5 years at specs though.

The great thing about older washers and dryers, esp the Whirlpool made models (with many different brand names on them) is that they are simple and easy to work on. They made so many of essentially the same machine that parts are easily available, and there is a YouTube video for fixing anything that can go wrong with them. You should be able to keep them running indefinitely.

My mother and father in law have these, they specifically sought them. They're these old brown Maytag machines. Really nice and easy to use. If I ever replace the ones that came with my house I'll probably look for the same kind.

If you are really worried just drop a few dollars on spares for all the internal parts. Most everything can be found on Amazon. It's hard to imagine drying enough clothes to wear out the heater element more than three times in the average human lifespan.

My dryer heating element broke last week, after 14 months of operation. It's awesome that I was able to buy one on Amazon and get it the next day (Sunday). But it sucks that it only lasted 14 months. I'm hoping my remaining lifespan is greater than 2.3 years, but you never know.

Strange that Americans have two devices washer and dryer, where as most of the rest of the world use a single washing machine, that does both, without having to switch clothes between the two. Perhaps it is the marketing efforts of the manufacturers that is preventing Americans from realizing that the work could be done by a single appliance.

I'm no dryer expert (using an old fashioned clotheslines or a rack), but i gathered from people who use them that separate dryers work much better (larger capacity, better results) than integrated ones.

Those machines are available here in the US. I considered buying one. While not having to switch clothes was appealing, the low capacities and long cycle times felt like it cancelled out that advantage. The lackluster reviews I read from those who had made the switch were probably the biggest reason why I didn't do so myself.

As I understand, our laundry habits are a bit different than much of the world. We tend to wash everything after one use and clotheslines are few and far between.

Also, our energy prices are cheap, so the pay-off curve for the efficiency gain of such a machine is long.

They'll probably get more popular as family sizes continue to shrink, and people continue migrating back to cities.

As per my info, washing machines are available in reasonable enough capacities for most European and Asian families, so I do not think capacity is an argument against them. Also their cycle time is around an hour mark, so I think even that is not much.

I'm not arguing against them.

They exist in the US, so there must be a reason why they aren't as popular. I was outlining my reasons. Preferences are simply preferences.

The bottleneck in our case is not the capacity but the number of colors you need to wash separately.

I don't think I've ever seen one of these in France. Everybody has separate machines or hangs their stuff to dry.

I may be forced into buying a new car soon if I can’t fix mine, and I’m also dreading it. I have an 07 right now, and I’m really worried about finding a car to buy that I can still work on myself. Having learned how to rip a car apart and put it back together, I can’t stomach paying someone else to fix my car for me.

I have been driving Hondas since 2004. Never had any needs to "work on them myself". Once a year I go for the yearly checkup/maintenance and that's it. And I rather love all the "smart" features in my Civic. I was surprised by how well they work.

How much is your time worth?

Many of the simpler maintenance jobs are not much slower to do yourself, if we're operating under the assumption that to get someone else to do it, you have to drive your car to their shop and then wait around or walk back home and come get it back later.

I used to do simple maintenance on my vehicles. Helped my dad work on an 83 GMC Jimmy, and 88 Chevy Blazer, 78 Ford pickup and an 89 Chevy Pickup. Of all of those, the 83 Jimmy was the easiest to work on. Lots of room under the hood. I could literally sit on the front fender to change spark plugs or wires (I was a small teenager, but there was a ton of room to move around in). Now, I drive a 2013 Charger SRT with a 6.4L V8. There is next to no room under the hood. I wouldnt even bother trying. My hands have enough scars already. At least the battery is accessible in the trunk. My brother had an old Saturn, and you had to remove the passenger side front wheel to replace the battery. My wife's Accura is somewhat annoying, too. The battery is accesible directly from under the hood, but the angles you have to maneuver the battery is ridiculous.

What my time is worth has changed over the years, but what I'm willing to put up with has likewise changed. Yet, it's still valuable to know how to do basic things like top off fluids. Dont want to be stranded in the desert or a mountain pass if you dont know how to top off coolant, or seize an engine because your oil level is too low.

I dont do most of my maintenance any more, but I think its worth knowing the basics in a pinch. Adding fluids, jumping a battery, changing a tire, etc.

Buy Bosch appliances at the cheaper end of their price range. They're reliable, effective and simple. The one I bought 4 years ago has 3 buttons and that's it.

AFAIK, a company called Staber builds washers and dryers with nods to repairability.

That's why I bought a Kenmore HE3. I can buy most parts for $<50 on Amazon (or eBay in the worst case).

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