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me_irl
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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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me_irl
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Appliance repairman here. New appliances are aggressively overpriced for very little reward. Aside from looking nice they offer nothing new. And worse of all older appliances from the late 90s early 2000s are significantly better than anything coming out right now.
It is a pleasure working on those old appliances when they pop up.
My new dishwasher opens itself after it's done. TBH, that was absolutely worth getting a new one.
And my new washing machine has a hot water connector and thus can use water from my heatpump, my solar heater or my wood stove. That was worth the switch as well.
And my new stove uses induction, I'm never going back.
And my new clothes dryer uses a third of the energy of the old one because, heatpump.
Eh, I'd say new appliances can do some things better than old ones, but only if you don't buy the basic models.
What's the advantage of the dishwasher opening itself when it's done?
Dry dishes, even if you're not around when it's finished.
Does it close itself again after it's dry? I don't necessarily want the door open for hours
No, it doesn't. I wouldn't want it closed, there is a wet pump sump in there. A closed dishwasher is moist af inside.
I think we're only talking about the dishwasher door, not the door of your house/flat. If the air inside is that dirty I think you have bigger problems. Or, I just realised, is this to do with having pets?
I should have clarified I'm in America and my only interaction with appliances are from the country I live in.
Generally a heat pump is more efficient and better for many applications but here in the states they're very uncommon. Basically everyone has hot and cold water connected to the clothing washer.
Dishwashers opening themselves is just a feature some of them have but it isn't necessary or really useful. I'm glad you like it but ultimately it serves no real purpose.
Induction cooktops are among the worst appliances ever invented by humanity they are truly terrible. Again I'm glad that you like what you have and that's all good for you but generally people are unhappy with induction cooktops and they are very unpopular here in the states. Also they're hell in a handbasket to work on.
In terms of efficiency your dryer is pulling the exact same amount of power it has always pulled dryers have not become significantly more efficient over time the issue is a physics one we have to remove moisture from clothing and that requires a minimum amount of energy we're never going to get around that. If you are experiencing less energy usage on your bill most likely that's a placebo effect abd your dryer has nothing to do with it.
Moreover efficiency is a double edged sword for example washers use a lot less water per load but in reality they don't they just use a small amount of water several times throughout the cycle. A washer back in the 70s had a maximum cycle of about 30 minutes that's how long it took to wash clothes because they use a tub full of water nowadays they'll use a quarter of a gallon four times throughout a load making the wash time almost 2 hours. Washers and abusing more electricity but a little bit less water which equals out to zero savings.
The price difference of energy costs per year on a refrigerator sold today versus refrigerator sold 20 years ago is like $10 not worth the savings definitely not worth the crappy technology they have put into those appliances.
They're not built to last nearly as long though, especially refrigerators.
Also, does that mean your old washer was cold water only?
Probably internal heater. Warm water connection probably saves having to connect up the gas.
Oh come on, don't tell me that US washing machines are filled up with gas. That would be hilariously stereotypical XD
I don't mean petrol if that's what you think. But the actual gas people use to heat their homes and water anyways.
LOL, still.
Oh, okay, the non-liquid gas, I see. Still: The washing machines contain a little burner and exhaust and all that and heat their water with gas? Never seen that here, always just an electric heater in there.
Our 40+ year old washer and dryer both run on gas, they indeed have an exhaust out the roof which they share with our boiler.
Electric replacements and heatpump are coming soon tho.
Yes - well, that was just a normal washing machine that used cold water from the tap and heated it in the drum using electricity. That's basically what all washing machines on the market do, the hot water connector is a extra thing in the more expensive product lines. Directly heating cold water is more inefficient compared to my other hot water sources.
When I was a lot younger, pretty much every washing machine (here in the UK) had both hot and cold fill. It went away for three reasons.
It's more cost effective to heat a small amount of water directly at100% efficiency in the machine than drawing cold water out of the pipework and either heating it then rest of the way directly or pouring it down the drain until it ran hot from the 80% efficient gas appliance.
Interesting to hear it might be making a comeback. I can see the logic if there's a source of hot water from a heat pump, provided losses can be minimised.
Personally I have PV so (weather permitting) electric is preferable to gas other than for space heating and bathing. That could change though. As it is, the heat pump drier, efficient as it is, still accounts for the majority of the energy used for laundry, even with the washer doing an extra spin cycle.
Huh, and I always thought that was a new and shiny thing, never saw it on older (40 yrs+) washing machines when I helped cleaning out houses or something like that. Different countries, different appliances!
Yes, that would be inefficient, right. New houses here usually have a hot water ring system with hot water always circulating, so only a meter or so is actual cold water in the pipe, where the connector diverts from that ring. In winter the heat loss from the ring doesn't matter, you're heating the house either way and in summer it doesn't matter because PV and solar thermal bring in so much energy, you can't use it all anyhow anyway.
Same here, PV, battery, heat pump, solar thermal, dynamic pricing electricity and for emergency situations, wood burning water heater and two pumps that runs the whole heating system off the car or a generator using a few watts. When we built the house I opted out of a gas connection, so far that seems like the right direction.
I've found that some things require a good 75°C from time to time to not start smelling over time. Dog blankets, e.g. - but then again, from April to October hot water is practically free to me, so the temps don't really matter.
Nah quite the opposite, same experience as the other guy, looking at washing machines in Italy and Australia, they used to have hot and cold intake but moving to cold only and leaving it to the appliance to heat up a small amount of water.
My newish washing machine is a bosch, the model is prolly from 5 years ago though i bought it more recently, and it's got cold water intake only (unliken the ancient LG that was sold to someone who needed a cheap one)
I would assume newer appliances have just as many increases to efficiency, as they do corners cut to reduce the cost.
I'd say the smart features are something new, but it's almost always locked behind information stealing applications that you need to have, just to check if your laundry is done yet.
9 times out of 10 you can get better smart integration with some alligator clips and a raspberry Pi or esp32.
In 20 years of appliance repair doing on average 5 orders a day I have met maybe two or three clients that used the smart features in their appliances. Otherwise they are totally useless.
I remember reading an article from GE a while ago where they were complaining that very, very few people were using the WiFi features on their washers and dryers.
No one asked for WiFi, no one needs Wi-Fi on their appliances.
I only want to get an alert when the dryer finishes. The places I usually sit and wait for it to do the thing, are all too far away to hear the frilly "end chime" it quietly plays at the end of the cycle.
My late father's dryer had a very loud buzzer that you could hear almost everywhere in the house.
The dryer in my home just plays a little ditty through what I can only describe as a 486 system speaker. I can't hear it one room over.
Shout-out to my 30 year old sandwich maker
That's no way to talk about your significant other
Better in terms of reliability, I'm sure – but what about efficiency?
I recently was in the market for a new dishwasher.
I compared the EU eco labels (which are based on water and energy use).
Buying the worst possible eco label currently on the market, and comparing it against the best two:
If I could find a decent 90s model for which parts were still widely available, I'd buy that instead. I truly doubt that burning through these poorly made newer devices are sufficiently more ecological than just using a old machine for a longer time.
In my experience it cleans just fine? Maybe your dishwasher just sucks
Efficiency is a double-edged sword manufacturers will manipulate how efficient their appliances are to make it look as though they're compliant.
For example new washing machines for clothing advertise to use very little water which technically they do. The problem is that they will drain and rinse several times throughout the cycle. Which in turn makes the cycle significantly longer.
A washing machine from the '70s used about 15 to 20 gallons of water per cycle but the cycle itself lasted for about 30 minutes.
Now a washer will use 5 to 10 gallons of water per cycle but the cycle is almost 2 hours long. The savings in water compared to the usage of electricity cancel each other out gaining you absolutely no increase in inefficiency.
A refrigerator from the mid to late '90s used about 40 to $50 a year in electricity new refrigeration uses $30 a year in electricity the increase to efficiency is so small that it's completely negligible.
And keep in mind modern appliances are nothing more than convenience. Aside from refrigerators of course, things like dishwashers clothing washers clothing dryers we don't actually need any of those we can do all that stuff by hand.