So, while staying out the heat yesterday, which ended up being worse than the day before, and appears to be even worse again today, the wife and I were having snippets of conversation. She suddenly says that she has an idea for a post, that I should post about it. I think I may have bemoaned about the very topic briefly in the past, but she was right. It could stand a post all on its own.
Why, with all the so-called improvements with technology, manufacturing, "quality", do products seem to fail or wear out more quickly? Good question.
A prime example, appliances. When we moved in to our current dwelling, there was a stove. A dusty gold yellow colour. A very old oven with stovetop, at least thirty years old, probably closer to forty. It worked fine. In fact, it was one of the best stoves I have every used in my life. The mount for the thermostat in the oven eventually broke, but it still worked and was not in the way. The oven got to the set temperature in five minutes or less. One burner on the stovetop eventually failed. Actually, it was the harness the element plugged in to, not the burner itself. So, we ran with three burners for some time. Then another "burner" failed. No worries, I could work with it, plus I had my so-called "Chinese" butane stove if I needed more than two elements to cook on. Then a third went.
We limped along for a bit, a month or two. We were trying to decide what to do, replace or repair. While we hummed and hawed, the wife's family Christmas was planned. It was going to be at Casa Rooster. Well, we needed to do something with the stove now. No way I could cook Christmas dinner for seven people with one element and a butane burner. We bought a new stove.
What a mistake. Sure, it was an entry level stove, but it should have been better than a forty year old oven. Well, in the end, no. The first big use at Christmas, it was a letdown. While cooking, and I did not realise this at first, two elements were not heating up on the stove, then the oven itself gave up the ghost. We had some weirdness, some lights in the house acted up too and we thought maybe it was a brown out of sorts. We even called HydroOne, the electrical utility company in our area and they checked things out and could not find out what was wrong.
Luckily, the turkey in the oven was all but done and managed to finish its end-run with what heat remained in the oven. I got out the butane burner and finished everything in batches and stuffed as much in the oven to keep warm as possible.
We later determined, that when the oven and all four element are turned on at the same time, then it will blow a 30 amp fuse. What killed me though, unlike older stoves, if the element is not working, the light by the dial stays off. Not this one, they lit up and I did not realise at first what was going on. What a crappy design. Another crappy thing about it, the oven racks. They are flimsy. Every time I put a roast or bird in there, I think the rack is going to break.
I wish I kept the old racks from the old oven. No, I wish I kept the old oven. It surely would have cost less than this piece of crap. Even if it did not cost less, it would have been worth fixing it. This oven is now coming up on four years now. It is said that appliances now-a-days do not last longer than seven years. How true that is. This one has started rusting!
When we moved in, we bought a fridge, but it was too big for the kitchen, our real estate agent gave us the wrong dimensions of its cubby. So, we needed to get another fridge. That was alright, I like having two fridges, they are often jam-packed with produce, that two is barely enough. So, we bought a second fridge, which was supposed to be the same one we left at our old house. The old fridge was supposed to come with us, but the real estate agent convinced us to include it in the sale to entice buyers, a huge mistake on our part.
The fridge that was left behind was ten years old when we moved out, and was still alive last I heard two years after moving to our new digs. The fridge we bought for the new house lasted not quite eight years. Another example of improved technology. Amazingly the other fridge has lasted almost eleven years. It should explode soon. We replaced our water heater after about ten years, which is pretty good now-a-days. The previous one was over thirty years old. The pre-tank water heater lasted about seven years, same model, but made later. More improved technology.
Our washer and dryer, which died within days of each other, lasted about eleven years, a miracle of modern manufacturing. The washer in our old house, we were convinced again to leave behind to sweeten the pot with the fridge, was ten years old as well when we left it behind and it was still working at least two years longer as well.
I will give you a super example of how modern manufacturing improvements blow. My friend, Pete from Osgoode, has an aunt who still has her original appliances in her kitchen, fridge and stove. They are over forty years old. They are a red colour that you will find in the finest whorehouses around, but still. They run like tops, I think she has replaced the gasket on the fridge door once or twice. And I am sure she has made some repairs to them over the years. They were built to be fixed. The junk they make now is made to be thrown out.
Here is the kicker: people often replace appliances while they are still working. We do this to help the environment. What a sham, scam, and load of bull turds! How is that possible? How are we helping the environment? We certainly are helping the companies that make this junk for us to buy and throw out after a few years, but if it does last longer, we often replace them anyway. Thus, we help the junk manufacturers anyway.
But wait, there's more! We are helping the electrical utilities most of all, not to mention all energy providing entities. How? By buying in to their lies. Lies of the highest order. They too tell us that we are helping the environment by replacing our appliances before they die, because new appliances use less electricity. So, we have junk fabricators, and "fact" fabricators.
You are probably scratching your head right now and think I have, not only lost my marbles, but have seriously chipped every single one before doing so. That may very well be, but this diatribe is not the evidence.
You see, we use electricity. The electricity companies tell us they want us to use less for the sake of the environment. Well, pretty much all utility, and energy providing companies - oil and gas producers and distributors too, have done a lot of defacing of this planet and continue to do so. Hydro-electric dams, oil rigs in the ocean, fracking, hell even so-called solar and wind power are not so nice to the planet in many ways. I know. I know. I sound like a conspiracy theorist.
Back to my point. How does our using less, help the electrical utility make more money? Well, they get more and more users, not customers, users. We are junkies of power usage. However, as more and more users come online, they cannot always meet that demand as quickly. So, while they get more users, they charge more horse-crap base fees to people before any electricity is used by them. Pretty sweet, right? We, in turn, as environmentally conscious people, replace our appliances for more "efficient" ones to use less electricity.
Here is the catch, the electricity, or whatever other fuel that was involved in producing your, say a fridge, your fridge, can never be recovered. That fuel to get the raw materials, to transport those raw materials, to manipulate those raw materials in to components, to transport those components, to assemble those components in to finished goods, to ship those goods to stores, to ship those goods to your home, cannot be recovered. Ever.
But wait, there's more! There is even more fuel that cannot be recovered. All the people involved in extracting the raw material, all the way to getting the finished product to your home, they have to get to and from work right? And it does not matter how they get to work, even if it is not a fuel consuming vehicle. The bus, tram, train, bicycle, shoes, that they may use to get to and from work have all consumed fuel at some point to go through the whole process your fridge did. And do not forget all your driving, busing, bicycling, what-have-you, that you did to look at all those different models of refrigerators in all those different stores. More unrecoverable fuel.
But wait, there's more! Then there is the disposal of your old fridge. Many just end up in landfills, you may think not, but you can live in that fantasy world if you want. Many, I am sure are broken down in to base components, but many parts will still be unsalvageable. Then there is the energy to do all that, taking your, "no longer useful" fridge away, dumping it, or striping it, or what ever. Fuel is involved.
But wait, there's more! Many electrical utilities actually charge higher rates for industrial consumption of their drug. That is correct, many factories pay a premium for electricity used to make consumer goods. There are varying formulae, but in the end the electricity "dealer" makes a ton of dough. At all stages, sub-stages, side-stages, and in the whole process again as it is renewed to make you another fridge. Pretty sweet, eh?! Plus, they have raped the planet quite handily, not always directly, but all energy providers are part and parcel to strangling this planet. But I bet you feel better using less electricity by purchasing a new fridge and helping to save the planet?
I know I......., excuse me,......., (ralph),....... Oh, now I feel better, not for using "less" electricity, just for puking my guts out in the realisation that I have been duped this whole time.
Do not even get me started on how new light bulb technologies fill the fat cats vaults with ridiculous gobs of cash too. Let alone the whole computer technology renewal cycle baloney. Maybe tomorrow. If I turn off my computer for a few hours, maybe I can save the planet?!? blbbl
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