this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2025
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[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 133 points 1 week ago (2 children)

You always have to leave the door open...

[–] HornedMeatBeast@lemmy.world 82 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I picked this up from my parents.

When I moved out, I lived with a flatmate for a few years and I left the washing machine door open after using it and my flatmate closed it.

I explained to her why I left it open and she just stared back at me. Not once had she ever thought of this and said it made so much sense. She is about 20 years my senior.

Certain habits seem to be so obvious, but unless handed down, someone may never even think of it.

Reminds me of that guy that never thought to let the shower water get warm before stepping in.

[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Huh... I have a top loader and grew up with one so it'd never occur to me this is needed, since with a top loader there's no reason to close it, it doesn't get in the way by being open

I'm glad I saw this thread, if I ever have a front loader now I'll know to leave it open :)

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[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@piefed.social 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

As well as the hatch where the detergent goes in. Otherwise it will get swampy in there. That part of the post kinda makes me wonder if maybe her mother just takes better care of hers.

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[–] mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 68 points 1 week ago (6 children)

You know the funny thing?

You can still buy appliances that last and have good service.

But you don't earn enough to afford them, like your parents did.

[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (7 children)

This is not the case. Washers used to be more expensive as a proportion of median income back then. According to this page a new Kenmore washer cost $289 in 1980. The median family income in 1980 was $21,023, so a new washer would cost 1.37% of a family's annual income. Compare to now, where the median household income is $83,150. As a proportion of median income, a $289 washer in 1980 would cost about $1500 today, which is about what a durable, well made washer with a 7 year warranty costs. Manufactured goods were largely more expensive compared to wages in the past.

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[–] duckCityComplex@lemmy.world 45 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Similar story for clothes dryers:

My parents' dryer had 2 knobs for temperature and run time, and a start button. Ran forever and dried clothes.

My dryer has like a dozen programmed cycles that rely on a moisture sensor that doesn't work and leaves clothes damp unless you use the manual time & temp settings, which takes several capacitive button presses on a circuit board that is likely to die before any of the actual mechanical components of the dryer. Also for some reason it has Wi-Fi.

[–] Idontevenknowanymore@mander.xyz 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"And for some reason it has Wi-Fi ." will be the last line in humanity's epitaph.

[–] exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 week ago

The latest xkcd has one of my favorite hover texts of all time:

It's important for devices to have internet connectivity so the manufacturer can patch remote exploits.

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[–] LBP321@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The washer and dryer at my mom's are 30 years old. She's had repairmen laugh at her for having them, but they're much better made than anything new.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 53 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Newer machines are several times more water and energy efficient.

Still nice that they lasted long and were easier to repair.

[–] jmill@lemmy.zip 46 points 1 week ago (7 children)

More water and energy efficient to run, yes. If you have to replace them every couple of years the resources used to make new ones need to be included too though, and that will have a big impact on the comparison. That said, I have had a modern front load pair for at least 5 years now, no issues.

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[–] ekky@sopuli.xyz 22 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Efficiency does little for your wallet and the environment if you need to buy/produce a new machine every few years.

(Not to say that we shouldn't strive for efficiency.)

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[–] Emi@ani.social 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

If repairman laugh at durable machinery they either just want your money or don't care about longevity. My father usually tells people to keep the old one if it's still working cuz the newer ones break down after a year or two and suck to repair (simple stuff just replaced with electronics that you have to replace whole for half the price of the whole machine).

[–] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 week ago

(simple stuff just replaced with electronics that you have to replace whole for half the price of the whole machine).

Not to mention the waste it creates.. In theory it can be recycled. In practice electronic waste is not recycled at the level you'd expect...

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[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Your parents washing machine also cost more because it was made better. The best price I could find for a standard washing machine in 1980 was $289. To put that into perspective, according to CPI inflation that is the equivalent of about $1,100 today. As a proportion of median individual income, that's like $1,550 today. You can still buy a Speed Queen washer for consumers that costs $1,500 and will last a long time, but people largely don't because the shitty one costs less than half of that.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This the argument I have with clients on a daily basis, in regards to all kinds of manufactured goods. People are astoundingly awful at understanding and visualizing inflation and the value of a dollar over time, even people who are specifically educated on this point and even work with it as part of their jobs. Everyone has some threshold beyond which they absolutely won't countenance paying more than $X for Y, but this is always arbitrary and whenever the course of events drives the median price of whatever-it-is past that line they lose their minds.

Durable goods manufacturing is a race to the bottom because it has to be in order to overcome everyone's moronic preconceptions about what a product "ought" to cost. This isn't just a capitalist greed thing, although it's certainly that, too -- corners have to be cut, panels have to be made thinner, it has to contain more plastic and less metal, because otherwise it'll never be cheap enough for 99% of the population to agree to buy it and even then they'll all still bitch about how shoddily made it is. Year over year every manufacturer has to figure out how to make it cheaper to slide under MSRP. The manufacturers who take the opposite strategy inevitably wind up as niche players, because as much as people spout that they'd happily pay more for a better built thing, the flat out truth is they're all full of shit and to the nearest decimal point, none of them actually will if given the opportunity.

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The problem is it is rarely an easy proposition to just "pay more and get a better product" especially when it comes to home appliances.

In most big box stores every option will be shit. Companies know that there are consumers at every price point and so they have a product for every price print.

The problem is the expensive isn't really better, it's the same fridge with the same compressor as a cheap one except it has a wifi dongle or a tablet in the door.

Of course there are the Vikings and Thermidors and whatever but those are Velben goods that priced so high that you could get 5 to 10 of the cheap options for the price of one.

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[–] JamesTBagg@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (3 children)

You can go buy those old washing machines. They're still out there. I got my washer and dryer used for 100 dollars each.

Nothing digital on them, all analog. Fixed a washer overflowing issue by replacing the $20 pressure level switch. Twice I've had to replace the heating element for the dryer, $20 bucks for those. Everything is replaceable with a flat head screwdriver and a youtube video.

Go buy those old washers and dryers.

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[–] glimse@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is like that fridge post from yesterday..

The difference is that...cheap washing machines didn't exist. Good modern washing machines last a long time while not wasting money and electricity.

You can't compare the only available appliances of the 70s to the bottom-of-the-barrel now

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 48 points 1 week ago (9 children)

No. That's not what's happening here.

And just for the record I am an appliance repair tech for the last 20 years.

Hands down appliances from the early 90s to about the 2010s are significantly better than new appliances today.

They are better in everyway. They were made under a different philosophy, they were made to be fixed.

When I stated my career in 2004 I would have a box of common parts that would break for each kind of appliance I would service. Fridge, washer, dryer ext. I wouldn't have to order a part for weeks. I would just drive down to the parts supplier stock up and move on to my next work order. Now all I do is order proprietary parts that are dedicated to one specific model number.

The materials and build quality of older appliances far exceeds that of new ones so much so that I am actually recommending to my clients that they try to find a used appliance rather than buy a new one because it'll probably last longer.

And I've had this argument so many times already on this platform the savings on energy are absolutely negligible. They can easily be ignored. To clarify the way they notate change in energy is by percentages so it'll appear that an appliance is saving 70% more energy but in reality that saving is stretched across 365 days which equates to maybe 25 to 30 cents of savings a day. Or it'll look like you're saving 400 kilowatt hours but again stretched across 365 days that's just over 1 kilowatt hour a day.

The only caveat is the fact that washers use less water which can actually turn into some kind of savings over the course of the year because your water heater will have to heat less water but that's about it.

Generally I fix appliances that are less than 10 years old most of those are refrigerators the extreme vast majority of those are Samsung appliances.

[–] fishy@lemmy.today 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not a repair tech, but this matches my experience maintaining and repairing my appliances. My early 80s whirlpool range and oven have had small issues here and there, but generally require swapping one part hidden behind some screws and will take under an hour. My Samsung dishwasher not only does a piss poor job, it also throws LC codes every few days. After the fourth time pulling it from the cabinet I had to put a series of shims to lift the leak sensor off the drip tray and buy a separate Wi-Fi moisture detector. My Samsung fridge (4yo) has a broken door ice dispenser and intermittently decides not to dispense water too. Old LG unit had a linear compressor that shit the bed three times before they refused to do any more warranty work on it.

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[–] Damage@feddit.it 23 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Buy European: Miele, Rex Electrolux, Beko (Turkish, don't get into that), Smeg, Candy, AEG, etc...

Don't want to jinx it, but my Electrolux washer-dryier is 7 years old and still like new, despite being relatively cheap and despite combined machines being more problematic.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Candy

Buy European and not cheap

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[–] MrEff@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I want to start an appliance company that offers 10 year warranties with an additional 5 year replaceable parts availability promise. The designs will be simple, functionality simple with minimal quality of life improvements, and all repair manuals will be published on the website along with tutorial videos, while also banking on building a product that simply lasts longer.

I'm willing to bet that if that is what you advertise on, the longevity of the product at a minimal price, then the company should do fine.

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

This was unironically Maytag, they enshitified with the rest. The Maytag man was a real thing.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (5 children)

You won't. You'll get annihilated by the next Chinese competitor who produces a piece of shit machine that breaks in 13 months like clockwork (and has a 12 month warranty), but sells for 1/2 or 2/3 of the price of your machine.

The average consumer is dogshit at conceptualizing the actual value of a product over its lifetime in proportion to its cost. They'll just see that the next machine on display at Best Buy or whatever looks modern and costs less to buy up front, and then they'll buy that one. When it breaks they'll bitch and moan on Facebook and Nextdoor and write ranty one star reviews everywhere, and then wheel right back to Best Buy and buy another machine just like it.

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[–] Thrife@feddit.org 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Mine does pretty music when done!

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[–] Gorilladrums@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (9 children)

This is some bullshit. You can go to Home Depot or Lowe's right now and get yourself a pretty decent washing machine for $600 that will last you a decade.

The only people who end up in the situation like OP are the people who buy overly cheap products or overly gimmicky products, and then wonder why they don't work as well as the standard products. If you buy a $150 washing machine from AliExpress or buy a washing machine that requires wifi, then don't be surprised if they stopped working not too long after you bought them.

[–] 1D10@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (7 children)

This is my mother in law to a tee, she buys second hand washing machines on craigslist for $100 - 200 they last about a year and she buys a new one. Always complaining about "planned obsolescence". I keep telling her "no one is selling a good used washing machine, they had problems with it and got a new one" Meanwhile she criticizes me for spending $700 on a washing machine we have had for 10 years now.

She has a saying "poor people have poor ways" which she thinks means that when your poor you work with what you have, I have told her it is an insult that means poor people are poor because of their actions and decisions.

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[–] MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (7 children)

One of these days I hope to eventually own a home. When I do, I want to buy one of the industrial-ass washing machines and dryers they use in laundromat and hotels. I'm sure it will be very expensive, but I firmly believe in "buy once, cry once". I want a laundry machine that is built to run 24/7 for 10+ years. Used at a personal pace, it should last forever.

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[–] Melonpoly@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Don't buy American washers, I think only speed queen still bothers with quality.

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[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

We keep having to replace the logic board on our dryer.

Motherfucker, your job is to get hot and spin. I want the old "egg-timer that flips a switch" tech to come back.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 week ago (6 children)

If it's a side-loading washer, you're not supposed to close the door all the way when it isn't in use. That's why it smelled.

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[–] robolemmy@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Survivorship bias is a heck of a drug.

[–] frunch@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago (7 children)

There's no comparison between an old Maytag washer and dryer and a new/current Maytag washer and dryer. This is a case where survivorship bias does not apply, imo. Appliances were built more durable back in the day. There are plenty of older appliances working just fine today while some stuff under 5 years is already getting scrapped because it's too expensive to fix and/or parts aren't even available. It's total nonsense

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[–] nevetsg@aussie.zone 14 points 1 week ago

I had to buy 4 little plastic things for $15 every few years to keep my 25yo machine working. Last time I got like 50 of them for $25. I can keep her running for the rest of my life.

[–] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Spend a little more and get yourself a speed queen top loader and never replace it again.

But also … my Maytag (same brand as my parents that came with the house that was built in 82) high efficiency front loader has been reliable af too.

Just don’t get a washer from a brand that is just a tech brand that now makes washers.

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[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I've repaired a few dryers, the new ones have the same aluminium drum like you would expect but for some godforsaken reason they're allowed to mount that drum in place on a plastic ring. The dial components and thermostats used to safely operate the heating elements are also much smaller, which is problematic given that gives them less capacitance for high voltage and heat causing them to fail easier.

But worst of all is that when they fail, not if but when, you can't just take the dial off and file the corrosion off the metal contacts, you have to order an entirely new board completely if they offer it at all. You can't just open the top and front panel with a few screws to take the drum out and do repairs, you have to unscrew every panel in order and detatch them from the additional internal chassis, and you're gonna need like 7 fucking arms to put the damn thing back together.

If I were in charge, these sort of blatant obsolences would be punishable with extradition and federal prison.

[–] Soapbox@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 week ago (3 children)

My wife hates our "ugly" fridge that came with our house. It's about 25 years old works perfectly, even the ice maker. She is a frugal person that can't justify replacing it until it breaks. Yet it keeps on ticking. Everyone I know who has a fridge made in the last 10 years has a broken ice maker. I'm happy with the "ugly" perfectly functional fridge.

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[–] Bubbaonthebeach@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Bet someone chimes in with "but the new one is better because it uses less energy". I'm too lazy to figure the math on that but I can't imagine that the 20% more energy usage of my old machine is greater than the energy cost of manufacturing, shipping, extra repairs (parts, transportation) that the new "better" machines need on 1yr to 18month cycle of fixing or outright replacing.

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[–] Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago (16 children)

Don't forget the wifi not connecting or staying connected, keeping it from getting updates for reasons mortals aren't supposed to know.

[–] jqubed@lemmy.world 30 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Why should a washing machine need updates to begin with?

[–] Slotos@feddit.nl 11 points 1 week ago

So that manufacturers can patch up remote exploits, duh!

[–] cRazi_man@europe.pub 10 points 1 week ago

Always online model of laundry DRM. When the servers shut down then the washing machine stops working.

Also, washing machines tend to eat up one sock. Now there's going to be a micro transaction to get the sock back.

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