How often do you go through appliances?

calab

1 MW
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Dec 10, 2013
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Washer lasted 5 years and it was not a cheap one, mid price range.
It costs $20/m, not sure how long the dryer has lasted.

The $20 stand up fans usually last 2 years on 24/7.

Water softener has lasted 20 years.

Furnace 10 years.

Central A/C I think never been replaced since we had house custom built 20 years ago.

Roof will last forever, 20 years so far.

Hail damage took out the backside windows plastic casements, its covered.
Siding was fine since it was stucco, but everyone who has vinyl (which is 80% of everyone for older homes and 95% of new homes) needs their hail sides replaced.
Not sure why home builders are allowed to install that crap, its a waste of money but they need to hit a price point.
 
My stove was taken out by a power outage and surge about six months ago. The control box/display panel is SOOOO expensive I have not replaced it. So I have no idea what time it is in the kitchen anymore. Lol. It is a electric stove: Everything else still works. The burners and oven are on a dial. However, the timer and clock, thermometer, panel is dead dead dead.

Roof is the big thing, needless to say. If you save for anything, home wise, save up and spend on the roof. Biggest expense, most important. Fails fastest.. I would like to replace mine with a steel 50 year roof someday. Most around here are 20/25 year asphalt roofs.

My Washer/Dryer is matched Whirlpool set, very nice and has lasted 10 years so far. Me and my family beat them up ( cats). Washing blankets and rugs and stuff. My furnace is like 30 years old, on its fifth or sixth oil burner cause my basement floods and takes it out every other year..... I gotta fix what is left. I go through a sump pump every two years. Like clockwork.

It is ridiculous. I bought my house for $48K cash. In 2011. Ten years ago.

I could sell it today for $200K. Easy. Real estate has gone up and no houses are available locally, and my locality is in the " corridor" of commuting to Philadelphia: Very desirable area, . Alot of blow up in the market recently. Houses and lots that have sat for years are selling and people are building around here. Lot next door is for sale: 1 acre of woods that I would love to have for my own... but its price tag is $100K. If it was $50K, I would own it.

I have done a lot of stucco. Stucco is expensive. To coat an entire house. Have a house right now that someone wants a new top coat for, trying to figure out how I can get it done. Yeah, I have done a ton of wallcoating and building. Tons, eons, worth. Siding comes cheaply, ready to use, in a box. For a stucco house ( we use alot of synthetic " Dry-Vit" like products here for the top coats) you need a crew, masons, and the mason monkeys ( tenders), scaffolding, a mixer, and the trucks to get them in and out ( of suburbia) every day. I was the mason monkey on a plastering crew for like four or five years. I love it.
 
One of the things that brought me to ebikes and this forum was finding out how to jurry-rig appliances back to function. With the chip shortage ongoing, these things terrible throw-away nature is REALLY gonna make itself known. I've done no real Jurry-rigging yet, though I have several treadmill motors and weird PWM drivers ready to go in case I desire to. I have several machine tools that will soon need belt-driven motors and I am READY 8)

The newest appliance in my home is the fridge, and a used microwave I bought for some $30. I'd still be using the original fridge had the original not died on me the day I moved in, but those things are becoming so efficient now that the old ones really are becoming not worth it- plus, my power company will pay me to haul it off and suck the flourocarbons out. But otherwise? Oven, dishwasher, washer and dryer are all from the mid 70s when the home was put up :lol:. They work just fine (mostly) and I resist my families attempts to replace them for new machines, because I simply do not see the point. Wood Grain, baby!

And oh god, the home prices... bought mine when interest hit 3.5% and bought for $124K, and with all the work done I think I could get nearly $200K for it now. There's been a LOT of work done to be sure, but the market has gone insane and I won't sell because I doubt i'll be able to get another home to replace it.
 
Toaster
Kettle
Microwave
Coffee maker
Dryer
Dishwasher
Fan heater
Pool cleaner
... that is just the ELECTRICAL appliances that have had to be replaced since January this year
In addition the washing machine failed, but was repairable , and a TV ( 2 yrs old) is acting up, but is being ignored !!
 
Got a dryer from somewhere almost ten years ago. It was old when we got it. A few months ago, it started to smoke. My wife asked me to take a look. After disconnecting it and opening it up, I found that there was an ungodly amount of lint all around the bottom and some had burned up and was really close to a harness. I cut the bad wire off and spliced up new wire. Cleaned all the lint out and put it all back together. It works great now, well just as before anyway. My wife is stoked because we didn’t have to buy an expensive thing. Maybe it’s almost 20 years old now.

Almost anything can be taken apart. If it can be taken apart, it can (most likely) be fixed. I fix most things around the house.

My wife was watching TV and POP!! The TV turned off. I was at work when I got the call. I took the TV down and opened it up. Found out the power board had blown. I found a replacement board for $30. Installed it and it’s back working again. We can watch shit TV once again. I hate TV. That TV lasted 15 years. We ended up getting rid of it due to my father-in-laws friend upgrading to an 80” TV. They had this 65” TV for about 6 months. Instead of returning it, he gave it away. SCORE!! Video games look very nice now.

I’ve also fixed my Nintendo switch. It had a faulty sd card reader. So I installed a new one. Pretty easy, but it’s very tiny.

I Iike to keep things I buy. I also like to fix things, it’s very rewarding. We haven’t bought a major appliance in 8 years. The newest appliance we bought was a dishwashing machine, actually someone was giving it away due to them upgrading their kitchen.
 
1. Last month replaced the 15 year old microwave.
2. Had to replace a dvd/blueray that was only 2yrs old.
3. Replaced a different dvd/blueray player that was 1 yr old.
4. Last year replaced a LCD tv with a smarttv for streaming, still have the old one.
5. 2 years ago replaced 10 year old washer (still worked) with a new computerized energy saver washer. Old gas dryer still going strong - it's computer controller.
6. 3 years ago replaced the dual electric oven from the 60's with a gas-electric oven. It's a very nice oven, little smaller so heats up fast, has all the bells and whistles. Went from not using a oven to almost using this one every day. even makes toast.
7. Added a mini split heatpump to my bedroom, hottest room in the house. It's 220 and max draw is 3 amps.
8. 3.5 years ago replaced my old tube tv with a smart tv for my room.

Next up is a min split heatpump to replaced a thru wall window unit. This area is a large bedroom with it's own bathroom and large walk in closet and is far from the central unit on the west side. gets a little warm during summer evenings, but is cold during the winter months. We have central AC/Heat for the house. My bed room was always 3 degs + warmer than the rest of the house located south east.

Something new the heater part of the central AC/Heater is malfunctioning had to turn off the breaker to the heater elements. This unit was put in used 20 yrs ago had it repaired 3 yrs ago. Think a big heatpump should replace it.
 
I was a home builder for 20 years. I’ve had a Whirlpool account for 30 something years where I could buy at 40 to 60 cents on the dollar. Every time I built myself a new house I bought new washer & dryer. Starting around 2008 the highest end washers I swear had a timer built in that lasted 13 months…..one month past the warranty. The first time it happened I called for service a good friend (R/C buddy!) showed up to do the service. To fix my washer that was based on the Fisher/Paykel (dc direct drive!) was going to cost $75 more than I could buy a new one……so I bought a new one! That buddy told me to buy the extended warranty but they were not offered by Whirlpool Partners. I figured I’d just buy one from Sears later.
Well, later came and went! Was busy building homes 24-7 and went past the 1 year……sure enough at 13 months the same model dam washer broke again. Luckily Sears would warranty anything no matter where you bought it. Wife bought the warranty for about $100 from Sears and 2 weeks later the service guy put almost 700 dollars worth of parts in it! We sold it with the house and switched to Samsung……14 months and another repair bill! Wasn’t as high as the kitchen aid stuff but still broke. Sold that with another home and bought another Samsung which we have now…..hasn’t broke yet! Fingers crossed but I think the timer broke! 😜

Everything is disposable it seems like.

Tom
 
Still using my 20-ish-year-old kenmore (whirlpool? I forget) washer/dryer set (that I got used from someone else over a decade and a half ago). Only thing I somewhat regularly have to fix (every few years) is the plastic/rubber coupler between motor and drive mechanics. Once a pump, a few years ago (the old one cracked open and started leaking, IIRC, from something (dog fur? don't recall) that got sucked into it and jammed the impeller against the casing).

I don't recall anything that's happened to the dryer.

I did have a 1990s microwave let it's magic smoke out last year, though, so now I"m using the smaller spare from a few years later.

Most of my stuff lasts a really long time...but I also get most of my stuff used from other people (or goodwill/etc), and it's generally old to start with.
 
One more story. 10 yrs ago my uncle passed away and left me my grandfathers washer who bought it from my mother when I was a baby. Extra drive belts where hanging on the wall by it. The lid switch went out the last year it was used by me, just by passed it. Sold the house 4yrs ago and washer went with it. Was still working 2 years ago. Don't know about now. Think it is a Maytag.
 
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