For example I often buy a new shower mat when it inevitably gets moldy and they're relatively cheap, but I appreciate I could clean it instead, which would be less wasteful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_razor
If you have the time/desire for it, a straight razor is also an option. It takes much more expertise and time, though, so I would start with the safety razor first.
I purchased my razor about 15yr ago now, and am still working through the first $25 worth of razor blades.
I have been meaning to drill out the head and use a bolt in the spirit of this thread, but will probably just buy a new one.
It's also possible to repair them to some extent. I've taken the body apart to clean it out, and it seems like it'd be easy enough to replace the battery.
I will use a real razor if I'm going to a formal event or something, but for daily use the clippers work fine.
I've replaced the blades once. Normally I'm pretty good at sharpening stuff, but I wasn't satisfied with my attempt on the clipper blades (too many tiny blades, and if they aren't super sharp they pull the hair instead of cutting it... not fun).
[1] https://www.parkershaving.com/p/sr1-barber-razor/sr1-barber-...
I bought a bulk pack of 3000 blades for about $30 from eBay. I got those when my kid was 6 and now he's old enough to be using them. It's a staggering saving.
I have had to replace my handle once though, they don't seem to be made that well, the outer shiny layer bubbled and peeled.
Cell phones are much more repairable than they seem. You can replace screens, batteries, USB ports, antennas, etc. A new battery and factory reset makes it seem completely new.
Laptops can often be repaired or upgraded, especially earlier MacBooks or current Dells. I've upgraded my old (2014?) MacBook pro and used it for daily use for years. You can even get NMVe converters and I've thought about making a usbC charge plug for them.
I've heard that swapping out the capacitors in TVs can bring them back to life. Haven't tried it.
I've brought baby equipment back to life, fixed janky strollers with 3d printed parts.
Try just repainting furniture. It'll feel new and costs maybe 10 bucks. Get some plastic wood to fill in cracks or holes, and you won't believe how much better things look.
I once got a baby high chair for free because they sent two left legs instead of right and left. I drilled out the appropriate screw holes to convert one to the right side and filled in the existing holes. That saved enough money to pay for the drill press I used.
Ifixit.com has become one of my favorite sites.
Tangential, but I’ve found this type of thing occurs pretty regularly. Where the economics of the industry have pushed the maintenance cost down to only a bit over the labour, and the actual equipment cost is somewhat negligible, so for an enterprising homeowner you get do the work yourself and end up with some equipment that you can use in the future for effectively nothing.
Most recently, I bought a house with an irrigation system. Learned that in our cold climate they need to be blown out before winter to avoid freezing. Called around and was quoted $250. Went on YouTube and learned the general concept, went to Home Depot and bought an air compressor and an irrigation system adapter for $275, and did it myself in an afternoon.
Admittedly, it took quite a while to diagnose the problems and get everything updated, but I consider that stuff a hobby.
A friend once got an old PowerPC iMac off eBay, and it perfectly ran Ubuntu 12.04 IIRC.
He set it up as a remote testbed for PPC benchmarking, since the Mars rovers use the same generation of PPC processors.
[0] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/BCG800XL+Grinder+Jamming+due+to...
Eg Blenders all seem to have proprietary connections between the motor base and the jar, often in plastic. When a small connection tab breaks, the whole thing is junk even though it still 'works' as 3d printing, glue, etc is usually not strong enough.
So when this hurried connection made in an awkward place turns out to have been poor and breaks after a few years; "the dishwasher is broken" and a repair shop charges half the cost of a new one to come out and look at it... It made sense to these folks to just go ahead and get a new one without the stains etc.
Lots of electronics get that treatment, its too complicated to think about what's inside it; so the whole unit is either working or broken but not considered repairable.
My mother had a washing machine for 25 years and it had only had a couple of belts replaced.
Her new washer failed within a year, and has been replaced by a washer that has also failed within a couple of years.
Electronics failure in both. The control board is expensive. Not like a $25 belt.
Anything built in the last few years is simply going to be less reliable on average.
On the other hand, appliances that require too much power (more than 13A) e.g. double oven and some hobs, or cookers do not come with anything and must be wired with an adequate cable, circuit, etc. In general circuit, switch, etc. should already be installed (otherwise you're majorly out of luck) and you only need to buy a 1-1.5m length of adequate 3-core rubber flex to connect your new oven. It's very simple to do as long as you know how to strip a cable and use a screwdriver.
When I bought my house, the (nimrod) flippers didn't hook up the stove, they just pushed it into place. Never having installed an electric stove, they didn't know you order the plug separately. As it turned out, the connection was so old that I had to special order a plug.
Edit: see https://www.askmediy.com/220-volt-plugs-receptacles-configur...
(scroll down to the bottom for a look at the full spectrum)
So they from that perspective a janky power cord and burnt out motor both fall under the same category of "it doesn't turn on".
Today even though most such repair is not worth my time per se, I want my son to grow up seeing dad figure out how to do stuff so he also expects himself to be able to figure out whatever comes up.
Same goes for washing machines/drying machines, or pretty much any other large appliance.
I've seen people throw out perfectly good soft furnishings simply because they didn't know how to clean them, and let outdoor furniture go to rot because they didn't bother treating the wood every year or so by oiling it.
Cookware also often goes to waste due to neglect or lack of maintenance - I know a few people who buy pretty expensive kitchen knives and never sharpen them, instead replacing them.
My refrigerator 'failed', and it just needed a new logic board. Way easier than building a computer. Risk was medium because it's hard to go too long without a refrigerator.
I had a tankless hot-water heater fail, so replaced most of the parts inside. Eventually, figured out the exchanger had cracked which was about 1/2 the cost of a new heater. Lots of time wasted, though not much money. Bought a new one b/c the one was 10 years old. Risk was low because we could survive without hot water for a bit. I installed the new one with the help of a friend - saved about $3k.
This cold caused an outside pipe to fail. I did PVC joins for the first time yesterday and they seem to be good. Cost was very little in both money and time. Risk is also low since it's outside. If what I did fails, I can always call a plumber.
Furniture items I reuse all the time. It's amazing what a quick repaint and/or buying new upholstery can do. When I buy new furniture now, I try to only buy things with slip covers/easy to replace parts.
Moral of the story: hubris is expensive.
A lot of you might be comfortable tinkering with breadboards or Arduinos and hobbyist electronics, but mains electricity can be lethal. Please consider hiring a professional electrician before you start replacing failing components or power cables if you're unsure about what you're doing.
Stay safe :)
I did not listen to them, with the caveat that this anecdote is from 8 years ago, but it would have helped me if I had the capacity to accept their insights at the time.
In the United States (and other countries, but is it every country?) we can freely go into a supply store and purchase electrical components with no licensing or any other approvals. Simply go in, get what you think you need, and leave.
So when we were wrapping up the installation of our new kitchen some decade ago, I had recently completed a college Physics course, which I believe I had about a C- average in, and was very confident that I knew enough to wire the electrical connection on our steel range vent, with steel fume collection hood.
A year in, the little light bulbs that illuminate the range beneath had burned out from extreme heat. The metal base was still in the socket, but the glass was gone. "No problem, I'll turn the power off at the circuit and use a potato cut in half as a handle to force the base out".
Of course, a combination of shared neutral wiring, and my own errors, including that ground and neutral were 'the same' and I had tied the neutral into the hood, left me blown across the kitchen when I finally used the oven door handle with my other hand for leverage.
The headache lasted about a week. My chest felt like a couch full of old pennies. The first thing I remember was my wife sobbing, and the second thing I remember was that I am dumb and lucky. The third thing I remember was guilt for making my wife cry, and that's the one that finally registered within me that I should not be touching wires.
10 years later, I touch wires. I'm still not certified to do it, but there haven't been any more accidents. I will do only what I can convince myself I fully understand. Operations performed here are either very simple, or outsourced to professionals.
Hire an electrician.
There are some things that require extra attention, like a microwave oven
However, if you do have skills and tools to do it, you may be surprised how much crazy money you can save by just maintaining the same product way past its expected lifetime. Especially true for various electronic appliances that often break down because some wire has gone bad somewhere.
It’s about a one hour repair on most ovens if you haven’t done it before. A ten minute job if you have.
* Top-loading washing machine. If it spins really loudly, or stops spinning, pop off the front panel and check the belt. Ours had just slipped off. Just make sure you get it really tight when reattaching--I had to redo it a couple times until it stayed on. As a bonus, I found a bunch of clothes that had fallen inside, including my wife's favorite skirt :-)
* iPhone battery replacement. Just bought the iFixit toolkit and followed their guide, it was pretty simple. Extended the life of my 6s+ another year (so far).
* Clothes repairs are pretty simple. I've patched some pretty big holes in jeans with new fabric which is a bit more involved, but things like sewing buttons back on or patching small holes is really simple, just look up mending stitches online. If you don't have the right color of thread, you can use hidden stitches, or go for a kintsugi approach and make the mending visible which can be pretty stylish.
* Stove burner covers -- these literally pop out and are (usually) dishwasher safe.
* Dishwasher cleaning -- this isn't hard, but can be pretty gross if it hasn't been done in awhile. Look up a youtube video, take all the parts out and thoroughly scrub everywhere you can, then run a cycle with a couple dishwasher cleaning tabs. Night and day cleaning difference for old dishwashers.
(so like put the item in a bag or container with a small amount of ammonia and let it sit overnight)
Or the few people that have these spares available try to sell them as if they were gold.
Right now I have a washer that needs its shock absorbing supports replaced, two supports are needed, I found them at 45 Euro each (other more common models are sold for anything between 5 and 15 Euro) + shipping.
Now on a simple washer that I can buy new for 400 Euro, and that is a few years old, spending 20-40 Euro for spares (not considering my time) makes sense, spending some 100 Euro makes very little.
Something else that few people consider is that the appliance you replace in the best case is (partially) recycled, in the worse ends up in a dumpster somehwere, while if you manage to repair it only the small parts that you replace are waste.
The problem is that it is hard to get the parts and it takes time, it's not guaranteed to be a fix, and the local repair people have a 2+ week wait to come and look. It's much more convenient to just buy replacement appliances. I'm comfortable fixing things but I don't always have time and that time would be further stretched having to go to the laundry place in town.
We bought replacements, got the repair company to fix up the old machines and sold them on.
Parts is the biggest issue. Our coffee machine needed repair. I would have loved to fix it myself but the parts are really expensive so I couldn't experiment... I tried replacing the tubes and a valve. In the end it needed a pump. The repair place that sees loads of them can just stock some spare pumps but I'd end up paying more than a new machine to do that... and the shipping on parts, it was stupidly expensive.
Also, what about the time spent learning all the info and knowledge necessary to be able to do the above?
There is always more to the cost equation than immediately obvious.
The video was published by a parts supplier, their site had a model search. 5min.
Knowing how to fix things, handy with tools and stuff...been working on that a little over 40 years.
1. Time to call the repair service
2. Being home to greet, escort, and explain the problem
3. The additional cost if sunk cost leads to replace instead of repair.
4. Effort to pay the bill
More related: the service person who looked at it charged about half of what a new one would have cost, so I understand how the economics often lean towards just replacing stuff.
I think the key point in your question is 'easy to repair' and that depends on your skills, knowledge, and whether you feel comfy around electrical stuff if that's the case.
I tend to try and fix everything myself OR if I hire someone I make them teach me how to do it (and pay them a bit more cash). I’ve rebuilt faucets (usually a gasket fails, that’s like $5 to replace).
Biggest repair was a dryer where the toroidal transformer failed on a 40-50 year old washer (it’s a component used in motors). I found the manual on eBay for a few bucks, got the specs of the transformer, bought a new on and rigged it up. Worked, still works.
A Samsung washer that would not detect that the door was closed. Bypassed it with a paper clip. You can open the door while the clothes are tumbling but I just don’t do that and all is good.
Many washers actually, bearings, belts, shocks.
A Hamilton beach electric kettle. To turn on you push down on a little lever that stays engaged until a bimetal gets hot and clicks off. It wouldn’t stay engaged. Disassembled and bent a contact a bit to give the lever a bit more range. Been working great for almost a year.
Apple Watch. Replaced battery. Sealing the screen again was a mess and didn’t last long, but it was good for a while.
A series of laptops
There are still vacuum cleaner repair shops in many cities. But they're often hard to find because they don't have the money to advertise or a web site.
If you're a DIY person, look at Dyson. People on HN like to complain about Dyson vaca because they're expensive. But they're also a good example of right-to-repair.
Mine recently had a problem and I found out that almost every part of it can be ordered online, even though it's older. And when my part arrived, disassembly was simple, and the instructions clear. It even came with new screws.
1. You need a specific and large socket wrench. (A big adjustable wrench wouldn’t work because the head was recessed.)
2. Mine was really stuck in there, so it took a lot of torque to get it loose. Had to get someone else to hold the water heater in place while I pulled on the wrench.
3. My water heater was up in the attic underneath the angled roof, and there wasn’t enough clearance to get the new one in. Got kind of sketchy tilting the water heater over so I could get it inserted.
I'm starting to think this is the real reason I pay people to fix things for me (if I don't do it myself). YouTube makes most fixable things pretty easy. It's the climbing over/under the house, getting in hard to reach places, etc... that makes a repair a pain.
The claims of extending the life of the heater indefinitely are dubious. There are also 2 heating elements that can burn out and 2 mechanical thermostats that can fail. Cheap parts, but the heating elements can become fused into the body of the heater from rust/corrosion.
In my opinion, tank water heaters are one of those things where tank failure can lead to catastrophic damage: you have 40+ gallons of water that can dump out, and then full water pressure behind it. You have no way of identifying the condition of the tank from the outside; it could fail suddenly. Basic electric models aren't particularly expensive, either (~$600.) It's generally accepted that 15 years of life is a good run. It's not worth the risk/expense of a leaking tank to squeeze another few years out, especially if it's in an area where even a small leak could cost thousands in damage.
The lifetime of a house is measured in centuries. Perhaps you mean the lifetime of the person who installed the water heater?
Perhaps a better measure is the life of the plumbing system, where pvc, copper have 30-50 year life expectations.
With an abundance of YouTube videos and multiple parts suppliers many appliances can be repaired with a few hours work and $100 in parts (depending on what's wrong of course)
I've repaired a freezer (thermostat/temp control) and a clothes dryer. Have also fixed my furnace.
I didn't try to figure out if it's also the case with any presently available models.
I just repaired a dresser that had both of these issues with wood glue and finish nails for the fascia and bondo and a drill for the failed MDF foot mounts.
Cheap furniture will not stand up to many moves but you can definitely repair a lot of it for very little time and money.
So it shows up, and it's quite handsome - but then this random thing intersects the corner, was it a vacuum cleaner? A box? And now there's a blemish, and it no longer feels 'new', it feels like cheap veneered furniture I got as a hand-me-down. I was incensed with myself for causing the blemish so early in my ownership of this overpriced thing.
My wife heard me grumbling, and she came to see what the fuss was. A moment later she re-appeared in my office with a single walnut from our pantry. And then a moment after that, I couldn't find the blemish on my credenza, for the walnut had completely rubbed into it and covered it!
We have a Kitchenaid mixer. It came with aluminum whisks and dough hooks, which don't dishwash. So I splurged on a 150 dollar set of stainless steel upgrades. They arrived, and I test fit them - they attached! And being the wise, old, fool that I am, I discarded the original attachments in a ceremony over jack daniels laced eggnog.
So then, Christmas Eve, we go to attach them and whip up a bunch of dough to make puff pastry, which is how one might make a raspberry turnover. Alas, the little attachments are barely too small to reach the bowl! And so everything is asunder, a bowl of un-kneaded dough.
Fortunately we live in a country that really rewards consumerism, and so 75 minutes later on Christmas Eve itself, I was back from the store with a replacement Kitchenaid, the 'Artisan' series, which I wisely spent a brief moment verifying would double my sunk-cost fallacy in 150 dollar attachments.
I hop into the shower, and my wife starts kneading the 6 cups of dough. Our ceiling fan wafts air in from the kitchen, which generally ends a shower prematurely for wont of sprinting to confectionary delights. This time, I spelled a burning motor. A moment later, my hands were feeling the motor casing for heat: blistering hot! Of course, being an infrastructure engineer for the public cloud, I instantly knew that this was 'bad' and turned the device off quickly.
"Ahah!" I declared victory with a sardonic undertone, "This mixer voids the warranty for more than two cups of flour, with the speed above 'low', for any dough kneading!"
Well, we ended up going back to the Kitchenaid professional. It's got a speed control issue and needs a new controller board. The gearbox often breaks little gear bits off and also requires repair on these. And many of the newer models have a plastic cases that warps under extreme heat - some describe this as a safety design feature to protect the metal gears, and others say its a cheaper component and unintentional downgrade. Either way, the parts are user accessible and replaceable. People who rely on these devices will apparently keep extra parts in anticipation of their failure, to carry on with minimal downtime.
And yes, there is another box of 150 dollar attachments somewhere in the mail, to replace the aluminum ones I brazenly tossed into the recycling bin. And yes, I lost the packaging for the ones too-small. So my friend gets a set for his artisan I confirmed he randomly owns sheepishly, and I get the original functionality back; I end up with exactly what I had, plus also a lesson hard-earned, for the low cost of 300 dollars. There is no age limit on feeling dumb :D Happy Holidays
Taking it to a commercial laundromat with one of those big front-loaders would probably work. Put in plenty of bleach.
That being said, the main reasons I replace what could be repaired are:
* a chance to upgrade something I bought 15 years ago
* cost of replacement parts is too high = most appliances fall in this category, very frustrating
* anything involving woodworking, it has never interested me but in hindsight I could've fixed quite a few things that just needed a new foot or bracket or even a whole drawer
Things I've replaced that were repairable:
Umbrellas, clocks, electric can opener, game consoles, IKEA bookshelfs and other furniture, carpets, hoses, electric tiller (part prices grrr), handheld vacs (part availability grrrr), a ton of kid toys that just needed a breadboard or piezo or light
Tldr Not as much as you'd think after 20 years of marriage, kids, and upward mobility, take care of your things!