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Comment by ternus | Hacker News Reader

Totally fine to choose as the author did, but for others who might face a similar choice: repairing a thermostat in a fridge is dramatically easier than fixing almost anything in a dishwasher. I did that with my fridge - cost <$20 for the part and maybe 30 minutes of work. Your (EU) kilometrage may vary.

I suspect the power savings would be much less dramatic with a fixed thermostat.

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Indeed, been there. Just getting the dishwasher out of its cubby hole is a major effort, and involves dealing with not just the wiring but the hoses too. And if it's an older house, chances are good that the dishwasher had to be crammed in with a certain amount of hacking, cussing, and persuasion.

The fridge rolls out into the room on its own wheels.

Amen. I put my dishwasher in myself so I get to curse myself for that hacking.

Worst was sourcing the parts though. Getting the thing out, effectively getting it up on blocks to run it and see the issue was hard work. Getting the specific totally non-standard o-ring size out of the manufacturer was impossible. In the end I resorted to siliconing but I just cannot dump something like that over a 5c part.

Many dishwashers are supposed to be wood-screwed into the surrounding cabinets! Recently installed one for a friend and was surprised to see that instruction.

Meanwhile, with the exception of ice makers/water dispensers (1/4 PEX), fridges don't have to deal with hoses for the most part. So much easier IME.

> Many dishwashers are supposed to be wood-screwed into the surrounding cabinets!

That's so they don't tip forward when a rack loaded with dishes is pulled out. There's a fair bit of forward leverage in that weight distribution.

Hum. The countertop will prevent that. No need to be screwed.

A lot of fridges in Europe are integrated into the kitchen cabinets, similar to dishwashers.

So I'd say they face the same kind of issues.

Unless the fridge is sitting on the subfloor/slab and a floor was built around the fridge, blocking it in.

We're talking like a couple hundred pounds. Push back on the top, pop in two 2x4's (one under each side, lengthwise, not across), then let it down and walk it forward.

I just changed the casters on my 42U rack, without moving (or shutting down) any of the machines. Now that required some deliberateness.

This must be dependent on your country's customs, I suppose. I've taken out dishwashers quite a few times and it was actually fairly easy. No wheels, true, but cables and hoses were never much of a problem in my case.

Nah, dishwashers are pretty light too. With a muscle mass of 1% I usually just flip it over to work on it. This is just peak HN, PhDs still phased by something requiring an 8th grade level of education. In the US, the supply is usually a screw on, the drain a clamp and if the wiring isn’t already a quick connect just throw some Wagos on.

Dishwashers are ok, depending on flooring - if you want to get it out and guarantee no scratches on the floor, it may be simpler to get some kind of "dolly" mechanical assistance.

Washing machines, on the other hand, tend to have a brick in the bottom to stop them from walking around on their own.

(periodic recommendation: if you buy a Miele, you will pay twice as much for several times the expected lifespan of a cheaper machine. My parents have a Miele dishwasher that's over 30 years old.)

My partners bought a house with a dishwasher. Apparently it was installed, then a new floor put in raising it about an inch effectively locking the dishwasher in place. Removing it involved removing the counter above (it needed replacing..) but your comment brought back some memories(lots of cussing)

I just replaced the drain pump and motherboard on my GE dishwasher and it was super easy. Everything was easy to access and all the major parts had a QR code on them making parts lookup idiot proof.

When the parts showed up they came with all the clamps and other replacement hardware that I didn’t even know I needed.

I've found cheap after-market thermostats to have short lifetimes... Original lasted 20 years... Replacement started misbehaving in just 2 years.

So now my policy is to retrofit all old refrigerators with digital STC-1000 thermostats. A bit more work to cut out some plastic, split the hot wire and tap into a neutral wire (easy enough to follow the bulb) but cheaper, super reliable, and gives very consistent and highly controllable results.

Two such upgraded refrigerators are still working without an issue several years later. Though both required replacing the relay (with a solid state relay/capacitor unit) at about the same time, and one after replacement of the evaporator fan motor due to noise issues.

Do you have a guide or reference to follow?

Sorry, I did not write-up a guide.

Electrically, you just need to: 1) connect both wires from the old mechanical thermostat to the "Cooling" terminal block (polarity doesn't matter). Or if your model doesn't have separate heat/cool the "relay" and configure settings for cooling mode rather than heating. 2) Tap into hot and neutral wires (going to the light bulb but BEFORE the door switch) and connect that to the STC-1000 power input (polarity doesn't matter).

Then configure the STC-1000, set a temperature to maybe 4C and set the "compressor delay" to at least 4 min, though I'm happy with 10. The default difference of 3C should be fine.

The plastic cutting varies by refrigerator design, but shouldn't be too confusing.

There is a wiring diagram for the STC-1000 in the manual: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71VSFdFfszL...

...and right on the unit: https://wiringandcircuit.blogspot.com/2025/04/temperature-co...

There are videos of it being installed (not a refrigerator retrofit): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30TvX1Zz1-Y

...and being configured: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQjicdtDVrQ

Also: if you find ice forming in your fridge, or uneven cooling inside, it may be due to a clogged drain tube. This was the root cause of my fridge breaking: tube in the back clogged -> condensation backed up around the evaporator coils -> froze solid -> blocked circulation fan -> incorrect thermal readings, warm/frozen spots in fridge.

I had one with a fan inside it that died, to similar effect. I didn't even know it used a fan to recirculate the air, until it didn't.

I've found US dishwashers pretty easy to fix, but Korean and German ones can be a bit more of a pain, and these are the ones built for the US market. I've heard that European models often have water softeners built in.

Yeah I was wondering if there was perhaps some regional differences. The one time I did a DIY fix of my dishwasher I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was. They're largely very simple devices, and aside from a couple screws to keep them from tipping, they slide right out of the opening they're in.

> [...] German ones can be a bit more of a pain

I did replace my dishwasher a few years ago with a Bosch. Uh-oh!

Not sure about dishwasher but our Bosch washing machine was fixed with little real fuss other than needing to have torx screw-bits. I quite admired the engineering.

We too have a Bosch dishwasher so - like you - we'll see how that goes...

Looking at their designs, this seems to be the case with other white goods too; I suspect it's because US designs are relatively old and simple since they were among the first, while foreign designs are more highly space- and cost-optimised at the expense of repairability and possibly robustness.

All German ones have water softeners I think, also most modern ones have a large flat water tank at the side that acts as a heat exchanger and condensation surface, and also saves water from the last rinse cycle to use in the first wash cycle the next time it's turned on.

Depends. My last fridge the thermostat went bad and it couldn’t be fixed because they embedded the entire thing into the foam. Terrible design. Was a whirlpool.

That's similar to what sent my last Samsung fridge to its next home. Samsung apparently had some problems with wire movement in the door hinge, so they changed the design and embedded the wires in glue/foam/whatever. So now if you have a problem with those wires, which happens because it's a hinge ... you get to replace the whole door at least. Turns out to be an expensive pain in the ass if the fridge is more than a few years old, it was more time- and cost-effective to get a new fridge at that point.

It takes a long time getting to know your dishwasher but my 2014 model was actually not that hard to debug and fix. Need to be able to source the parts of course. I was surprised how repairable it was. Will watch out for it when I need to buy another one.

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