Economic question

Ken · Jan 20, 2018

Egon said:
These are pretty reliable with no complex failure prone electronics!

View attachment 536552

Egon do you have the window card to tell the ice man how much is wanted/ needed.
ken

ultrarunner · Jan 20, 2018

Ken said:
Our biggest problem is lighting hitting the power line. then into the house and what ever protection you have is gone. in 22 years at this location the power meter has a protection module and it goes about every 3 years. and when is gone the surge takes every appliance connected. bushel basket of phones, modems,
stoves ,dishwashers and the washing machines and dryers sometimes goes same instant.

Then call power co. not there fault , Telco blames the power line no warranty covers lightening. there little line protectors for computers are a laugh the cover blows off goes across room and smoke is released after the computer give a strange IRK then a WHEEZE releases its smoke .
Electrician suggested a ground grid to spread the surge. ground rods with #8 copper attached in grid fashion if there is a gopher in the grid when surge hits would be cooked in a instant.
A month ago .clear sky no wind and power transformer on pole exploded blowing cover loose splashing oil on grass. everything in house was gone if attached to power. Co says not there fault. Lightening. could not say where.
I'm thinking if there could be a separation of the power coming in to a local generated power there would be less failures.
ken

When I lived in Austria up in the mountains there were some wicked lightening storms... all the homes have lightning arresters and/or lightning rod... the old ones are the ones with the lightning rods... the newer ones use the all the copper gutters and downspouts bonded to ground rods... very simple and I guess effective.

Public buildings like churches will have a large copper wire surface run of eves, peak and corners...

Also... just about everything is underground... above ground poles are very rare... less problems with storms, ice, auto accidents, etc..

My old Telco Engineer friend would say... until someone can find a way to put the smoke back in throw it away...

TractorGuy · Jan 20, 2018

oosik said:
I don't know what to tell you. My electric stove is 34 years old and still going strong. Freezer going bonkers at seven years - never heard of such a thing. Freezers should go 25 to 30 years. My first microwave went 26 years and I replaced it with the exact same brand/model.

Your units may be top line but they apparently are still crap.

Doesn't happen any more. My first Maytag washer and dryer were 25 years old and still working when I bought new ones. I put ALL NEW Maytag appliances in my house only to find out Maytag had sold to Amana and NONE of them were actually Maytag. The washing machine died just a few weeks out of the 2 year warranty and was junk from day one. We still have the stove, microwave, and dishwasher but the fridge, washer, and dryer are gone. I am actually on my 3rd refrigerator in 25 years. Had Kenmore (made by GE), Maytag (made by ???), and now a Whirlpool. The Whirlpool fit, finish, and function are okay but the ice dispenser is a huge POS. You pretty much have to leave it on crushed or the cubes will accumulate in the shute and fall out on the floor in 20 minutes. 3 service calls and multiple adjustments on cube size has not solved the issue.

For washers and dryers I now buy the lowest cost machine I can find. I presently have Roper machines made by Whirlpool and so far so good. $250 a pop so if they fail I go to Lowes and grab another one.

EddieWalker · Jan 20, 2018

I try to fix it if I can figure it out. Youtube is has been great at understanding what I'm getting into. Usually I google the problem, the brand and model and see what comes up. Some things like my Samsung TV where a common issue that some people got lucky with just tightening up the cables, but most had to replace the TV. I've fixed my Kitchenaid dishwasher a couple times now and plan on taking it apart again this weekend when it's raining out to see if I can get it going again. I find appliances to be very frustrating.

On a job last year my clients hired a repairman to fix their freezer. It was a big freezer that cost them a couple grand, so they didn't want to buy a new one, or deal with getting rid of it and getting the new one into their pantry. The repairman told me that he's super busy all the time, and that he makes two or three jobs a day at $100 an hour for his time. It does make me wonder what it takes to get into the appliance repairman business!!!

sd455dan · Jan 20, 2018

Streetcar said:
With my 4 year old dishwasher the mother board was bad.all cycles worked, but you had to manually push button to advance to next cycle. Parts were 80% of cost of new machine. I replaced it. Microwaves are usually not economic to have repairman fix

Agree there- (most) new appliance control boards are the make break for me, switches sensors motors/pumps not so much. priced the board for our Kenmore (Whirlpool) front load washer, over $300...

but not always, 60" LG HD plasma TV quit, 20 minutes on youtube ordered a board for $17 on ebay and back in business in 5 days.

goeduck · Jan 20, 2018

Ken said:
Our biggest problem is lighting hitting the power line. then into the house and what ever protection you have is gone.

I am lucky in that I have underground power from the pole to the house and then the poles are only about 1/3 the height of the adjacent trees.

goeduck · Jan 20, 2018

square1 said:
I won't buy "high end" anything. I see it as paying more for more things to go wrong.

Totally agree, plus the high end models are often the lowest selling models which means less debugging by the public. I like commonly sold models that have the best repair knowledge base and the lowest failures due to the volume. Not always the case but if it is a high volume model chances are the manufacturer was forced to come out with fixes for common failures because not doing so cost them too much under warranty. That is how I think anyway.

Creamer · Jan 20, 2018

sd455dan said:
Agree there- (most) new appliance control boards are the make break for me, switches sensors motors/pumps not so much. priced the board for our Kenmore (Whirlpool) front load washer, over $300...

but not always, 60" LG HD plasma TV quit, 20 minutes on youtube ordered a board for $17 on ebay and back in business in 5 days.

Sometimes you can get the boards repaired. For my double wall oven we had a touch panel issue and it was 10 years old and they did not make the part anymore but i found a firm in Texas that could repair them. So instead of a new $2500 oven I took the control panel out and shipped it off for two weeks and the total was about $250 including shipping.

Creamer · Jan 20, 2018

oosik said:
I don't know what to tell you. My electric stove is 34 years old and still going strong. Freezer going bonkers at seven years - never heard of such a thing. Freezers should go 25 to 30 years. My first microwave went 26 years and I replaced it with the exact same brand/model.

Your units may be top line but they apparently are still crap.

Where did you find a good 26 year old microwave? I know after a quarter of a century they were not making the same model.

3930dave · Jan 20, 2018

JD855guy said:
For washers and dryers I now buy the lowest cost machine I can find. I presently have Roper machines made by Whirlpool and so far so good. $250 a pop so if they fail I go to Lowes and grab another one.

As has been posted, hopefully the lower cost/higher volume ones are better validated, and have less to go wrong.

But yes, once they fall into the Bic Lighter category, it hurts the wallet less when scrapped.

Rgds, D.

3930dave · Jan 20, 2018

JD855guy said:
Doesn't happen any more. My first Maytag washer and dryer were 25 years old and still working when I bought new ones.

The Maytag Repairman retired too early..... but there's lots of work for his grandson !

Many corporations want to focus on Brand Management/Marketing exclusively, and just sub the actual production (and some/most of the engineering) out today.

Rgds, D.

95XL883 · Jan 20, 2018

sd455dan said:
Agree there- (most) new appliance control boards are the make break for me, switches sensors motors/pumps not so much. priced the board for our Kenmore (Whirlpool) front load washer, over $300...

but not always, 60" LG HD plasma TV quit, 20 minutes on youtube ordered a board for $17 on ebay and back in business in 5 days.

Glad you could get the board. On my LG HD plasma, one or two boards went out two months shy of the warranty. LG fixed it but the picture wasn't as good as before. The replacement board failed 13 months later. I did an internet search and narrowed and identified the boards. I could find only one of the boards new. It was the only one they had left and I would have had to import it from NZ. (Yes, any local repair shop couldn't have fixed it because they couldn't get the parts.) Pretty frustrating that a $1,700 tv not even three years old. I'll never own another LG product again.

The story has a semi-happy ending. One of my boys has a masters in electrical engineering and was designing airplane components at the time. (In other words, he is very knowledgeable and probably knew more than the engineer who originally designed the tv.) His opinion is it was a design flaw that the tv was overheating and it would continue to fail about once every one or two years. I wound up giving the tv to my boy who pulled the two boards, put them on an oscilloscope, identified the specific failed resistor/capacitor/chip/whatever, disassembled the boards and replaced the failed components. He also modified the back of the tv, improving cooling and added a couple of small fans to get the cooling right. His out of pocket cost for the parts was less than $5. The fans were $15. That tv is still running now 8 years later, but it took an electrical engineer with sophisticated equipment to fix the lousy design and deal with unavailable boards. Of course, for what his education cost, I could probably buy a new tv every year for the rest of my life. :laughing:

oosik · Jan 20, 2018

I've been reading thru all the posts here and trying to figure why I don't have more problems with lightning. Granted, I don't get lightning storms like I've witnessed in Nebraska but in late summer we do have several events.

Then I got to GOEDUCK'S post #26 and the light turned on. My house is surrounded by Ponderosa pine trees - all in the 85' to 105' range. Especially towards the SW where all the "heavy" weather comes from.

Its not totally uncommon for one of those tall pines to get hit during a lightning storm - perhaps saving a strike on my house.

I shall - knock on wood.

ultrarunner · Jan 20, 2018

LG is the old Gold Star if memory serves... this was a very inexpensive entry level that I first saw with things like Dorm Room Refrigerators.

Seems to be a common thread in that the electronics fail and that few are capable of doing anything but swapping parts and hoping for the best.

Dad's life long friend was in the TV business... going back to the first post war sets... he was always replacing tubes, including picture tubes... the quintessential guy on the test bench.

He liked Zenith and that is all the family bought... none have ever went bad... just who watches black and white anymore? The 1980 Color Console just keeps going... and at this stage in life mom needs to have the familiar and not up to learning with her memory problems.

My folks got married in the 50's with a hand me down Philco refrigerator... it is still working... then they got a Kelvinator... after 25 years the compressor went bad so Grandma had a Amana connection and that is what she has now... Mom was always worried about the ice maker line going bad so she doesn't use that feature...

In 1978 I redid all the appliances in her kitchen... GE except for the Amana and they are all working without problems...

Maybe they will be hand me downs because they work?

My friend replaced all his Frigidaire Harvest Gold appliances decades ago... I had a rental and said I can have all of it for $100... all of it is still working in a rental home...

goeduck · Jan 20, 2018

I have a LG clothes washer and microwave, both work fine and have for years. I think all brands have their good and bad.

TnAndy · Jan 20, 2018

sd455dan said:
Agree there- (most) new appliance control boards are the make break for me, switches sensors motors/pumps not so much. priced the board for our Kenmore (Whirlpool) front load washer, over $300...

The start button on our top loader 7-8yr old Whirlpool washer when out....I tried a work around or two, but not much success....you have to replace the whole control board. Junked the washer. Bought the LAST non-electronic control washer Lowe's had...the old mechanical timer type, and I'll fix it until parts are not available it something goes wrong with it. I've had it with overpriced 'control boards'.

TractorGuy · Jan 20, 2018

goeduck said:
I am lucky in that I have underground power from the pole to the house and then the poles are only about 1/3 the height of the adjacent trees.

Most of the lightning damage I have had over the years came from the lightning hitting a tree then following along the ground into the house. Buried phone lines were guaranteed to be a path for damaged phones, modems, or anything connected to them. We tried the invisible fencing one time. Had it two weeks and lightning struck a tree then went to ground where the wire was buried. Blew the controller and the GFI outlet it was plugged into right out of my wall in the garage. We even had two tires ruined by lightning running along the ground and going for the steel cords. Guy at the shop put several patches in and every time he tanked them there was another leak. I guess it entered in one location, ran around the cord in the rubber, and came out somewhere else inside. After the 3rd attempt I stuck a knife in the sidewalls of both and had them replaced.

I don't think having your power lines buried in the ground is going to protect you.

Arky217 · Jan 20, 2018

Been in current house 3+ years; here is my solution. It has worked so far.

* Install whole house surge protector in service panel.

* Plug everything electronic into a dedicated surge protector.

* And most important of all, during a thunderstorm,
UNPLUG EVERYTHING !!!

MarkF48 · Jan 20, 2018

Arky217 said:
Been in current house 3+ years; here is my solution. It has worked so far.

* Install whole house surge protector in service panel.

* Plug everything electronic into a dedicated surge protector.

* And most important of all, during a thunderstorm,
UNPLUG EVERYTHING !!!

Not 'during' the thunderstorm, but at sometime before if you know it's coming. Years ago my wife had just started to reach for the plug to the TV to pull it when a storm was upon us. We had a strike just an instant before she had her hand on it. The strike fried the TV and left burn marks on that outlet.

We unplug all the electronic gear including the cable for the TV and internet. My well pump also has plug that gets pulled. I do have lightening rods on the peak of my barn.