taking sides => fixing it vs throwing it in the bin

FIX IT. FIX IT. ALWAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is better for landfill Earth.
Your time is better spent getting it fixed than learning how the new one works.
Your money is better spent on getting another thing than an old one that can be fixed.
Old stuff is always made better. Always.
You will regret throwing away your old one for reasons you cannot foresee now.

If you cannot be bothered to fix it, for the love of all that is holy at least please give it to charity.

Ok, I am calm now.

But yeah, getting hold of parts from other companies seems impossible, and most chain places charge enormous rates for simple repairs.

yes, if one did a survey where one asked ppl from various countries what they would have done in the situations mentioned above, you'd probably find that the tendency to throw away rather than fix was almost directly correlated with the wealth of the country. You might object and say that there is a huge difference between rich and poor within countries and it is the wealth of the individual which dictates their attitude to this kind of thing. However, I don't think this is the case. In richer countries, the poorer ppl will often go out of their way to "keep up with the Joneses" and always have the newest stuff rather than repaired old stuff and they want to try to convince ppl that they are not impoverished. And there is a general *attitude* which permeates society within a country which discourages ppl from getting stuff mended - they either buy new goods or face social ostracism. This attitude is established in childhood (here kids in the playground tease other kids for having old phones or cd players patched up with sticky tape)and never really goes away.

As I think I said on the watch thread, ppl express surprise that I have a 20yr old watch & urge me to get a new one, even tho the watch works ok.

The environmental justificationsfor getting things fixed rather buying new goods speak for themselves.

if there was a bunch of regulated branded official random fix-it shops (tho perhaps a little more expensive than yr local mom n'pops BUT STILL REASONABLE) they would make a bomb

We have a local electrical fix it shop round the run by a very talented heroin addict the shop tends to be open irruglarly and never before about 4 in the afternoon, if it opens then it normally closes in the wee small hours of the morning. He is very good though.

Tips for fixing clogged hose in vacuum cleaner = buy 3' length of curtain wire, poke it down hose & wiggle it around. If hose is thick enough, you can get a broom, and stand it on the ground w/the pole upwards. Push the hose over the pole as far as it will go. Most hose blockages = pencil stub or similar sized item which gets caught up in the ribbed spiral bit, then fluff & dust back up behind it till all suction is lost. BTW I do occasionally (abt 0nce a year) get vaccum cleabers brought in - "I got it about a month ago, and now it doesn't suck anymore". Solution = throw old (full) dust bag away, and fit a new one. I usually lie about what the problem was (well sort of. I tell them it was blocked, omitting to mention that it was the dustbag that was blocked) because if you tell people the truth about this they don't believe you, and can sometimes get quite angry!

Alternatively - how hard is it to fit a new door to a washing machine yrself cos I reckon thats all thats wrong with it - it broke when it was slammed...

Appliance repair is no longer a viable trade in the UK.

You could probably supplement it with something lucrative like fart porn.

B-b-but then what will the aging parents of twenty-something characters in quaint independent films about the British Isles do?

I'm put in mind of this thread:

"do you think someday i will find a girl to marry and open an unsuccessful clock store with?"

Stop making such films, hopefully. (xpost)

I have a job interview/tryout tomorrow. Hopefully, I'm going to be doing periodic inspections on rented properties for the next six months, then diversifying into a full-fledged electrical inspector and tester. Horray, for the first time since something like 1992, i have a MARKETABLE SKILL. I will miss the old shop, nevertheless. Been working here for 20yrs, on and off.

Wow, Pash! What's going to happen to the place?

http://www.biojobblog.com/for_sale_sign(1).jpg

Might be a rough transition, but I think you can take heart that the ability to fix broken machines is always needed somewhere, whether they're consumer items or not; just having the brain and inclination for it should keep you doing fine.

word!

we just bought a new washing machine. our old one stopped spinning, and we were quoted half the price of a new one for repair, with no guarantee. thanks for the guilt trip, pash :(

so you'd rather pay double and then deal with the hassle of delivery + disposal of old one?

So, will it still be a bike shop / appliance repair place?

Also:

If we'd not been dead poor back in the sixties, I may have had my first bike from that shop. But we were living in Alice Street and the traffic was too dangerous for my mum to allow it.

I'm rambling now...

so you'd rather pay double and then deal with the hassle of delivery + disposal of old one?

no hassle of disposal (shops in the EU take old stuff back). delivery free.

200 quid for two years guaranteed new washing machine that works, or 100 quid on five years old non-guaranteed washing machine that mightn't.

the only place that does this kind of repair within 60 miles wouldn't fill me with confidence, so....

This news makes me really sad. I hope things work out really well for you, Pash.

It's too true: The market is predisposed to, um, disposing of old broken stuff. Either that, or selling 'suppoert policies'.

We have a rangemaster cooker, and a Dyson vacuum, both went 'a bit wrong', and it was tempting to scrap both and get replacements that would have cost less than the repair bills. But, both are 'good quality' items, (or are supposed to be: Rangemaster don't have any support as they discontinued the make (or themselves)), but then we'd end up with cheap stuff that'd not last as long.

Anyroad, I called in Dyson support and they fixed it to new (cost £25 or so, parts free), and I did a fix/clean job on the cooker, and all is well.

This is why I have mixed feelings about the whole "Recycling" thing: I do it anyway, but it seems the more we recycle, the more packaging happens to 'deluxe' readymeals and/or junk mail and so on.

(We do not live on readymeals btw: observation only)

It's like: pay 10p for a reuseable bag: just ends up beieng a stronger bag to put yr rubbish in to send to the skip, and so on...

Exeter City Council collects plastic shopping bags for recycling, so we chuck them in our green bins. We generally leave one propped on the radiator by the kitchen area to gather other recyclables in, and then tip the contents into the green bin when it's full. We've got oodles of canvas reusable bags that we use for general shopping.

darraghmac i wasn't talking about cost of delivery and dispoasl, really, just the physical hassle of it. as opposed to getting someone to come to your house and fix what you've got for half the price. i understand your POV of course but to me the decision isn't as slam-dunk as you make it out to be.

seen painted on the side of a truck today, as my bus pulled jerkily up to bethnal green station:

PAPER IS GOOD
WASTE IS BAD

I would've thought that in the current climate people would be more likely to make do and mend rather than splashing out on more expensive new gear. Clearly not. Best of luck in your job interviews.

The charity shops near us are always glad to be brought an armful of plastic bags. (Smaller charities, the bigger ones either have their own branded bags or have an outright no-plastic-bags policy)

My father keeps replacing the fridge thermostat, which is obviously a great deal cheaper than buying a new one, but it's a more complicated and expensive procedure (with more days of fridgelessness as the shop goes "arr, don't see many of that part these days, take a while to order that in") every time, and it keeps dying again six months later. Not quite sure at what point you should give up, really.

Then again, most of the appliances at home when I was a kid were older than me, and lasted until I was about 20. Half of their replacements wore out only a few years later. So... yeah, those people chucking out almost-working older appliances may be kicking themselves in a while.

Anyway, Pash, yr fixing tales upthread made me all warm inside; sorry it's not viable any more, and best wishes with the new job.

i keep getting my cooker, washing machine etc repaired, rather than replacing, they don't break often, but when they do, if its just a small part that needs replacing, i'd much rather do that. i also drove my last car into the ground, until this summer its gas tank began to leak vast amounts, and the repairs would've cost more than the car was worth. its partly because i'm a low-earner, but i also can't stand the waste of it.

and very best of luck, pash.

Is there anything you can do if you take something back to the shop to have a minor repair, and ages later they claim it's not back yet?

Both my dad (some expensive hi-fi, 2+ years, no replacement loaned) and my nan (TV, 8 months, loaned replacement doesn't do freeview which was specifically asked for) are having this problem. I mean it would be nice to think that if someone took yr expensive stuff for years then you might be entitled to something except losing it completely or getting a hefty bill, but I suspect that's naive, right?

So I shouldn't put stories of repair companies being asshats on Pashmina's thread, but it sucks if people like this get to ruin the reputation of people like Pash who actually do fix stuff well, reasonably and quickly.

Two years?? Haha wow.

its my dream to own a dyson. i swoon a little when i walk past them in Lowes.

well, actually, its my dream to hire someone who owns a dyson.

My roommate was just trying to get his space heater fixed and we all agreed we couldn't think of a single electronics-repair place around. I'm sure there are some but not a lot, and they're not highly visible, I guess...?

dysons sucks ass. we've had two. our cleaning lady even refuses to use it. hahaha

dysons SUCK ass. suxor. whatevs.

really??? roomba then?

what someone really need to make is a roomba that goes down stairs. i dont mind cleaning the floor, its just those fucking stairs

if only betty james were still with us, i am sure her engineering expertise could've solved this problem.

i've got a miele and it's the fucking nuts

Em adores our Dyson.

DC01, 03, 04 and 07 are great, the others are either half-assed or (in common w/a lot of appliances) way overcomplicated. 03 is my favourite as it's light. They change the designations & designs on this stuff way too often. The DC04 (like the VAX2000), really, they should have just kept making it, and not bothered with any of this new-model-every-18-months puffery.

2 years is an excessive amount of time to wait, for sure, but on occasion I've kept people waiting for 6 months and (once) over a year. Lack of availability of parts is another big big killer for this trade. Typically the lead time for service parts to be delivered to the UK from China or Indonesia is 6-8 weeks, but a lot of companies are pretty poor at sending this stuff out. Dyson are good at it, no-one else who's machines I worked on is.

I got the job, anyway. This is good, obviously. It's a good job, with decent pay, and prospects as well. I am doing something useful and worthwhile. But, I feel like shit. My poor little shop. I never expected to feel this way about it. I was in earlier this evening, looking at all of the cheery bike components hanging on the walls, the few bikes I have left. It was unbearable, I cried, I confess. I wish it could have worked out - me, my dad and my sister, we had a decent plan for running the place which I think was feasible, but when my dad got killed, it totally fucked it up. Man, life is shit sometimes.

So, will it still be a bike shop / appliance repair place?

I really have no idea, Mark. I'd be really surprised if anyone did keep it going the way it's been. We bought it as a going concern after our old South Eldon Street property got redeveloped, but me and my sis are just going to be clearing and selling the property empty. The upstairs flat is where mum & dad used to live, you can probably imagine, the whole thing is tied up with all this...stuff that's happened in the last 18mo. I lived there for a few years in the '80's, it was an OK place to live. I'm going to have to close all my accounts over the next month, shit like that. I don't know whether to keep the old ltd company name on as a dormant co name or not, I don't think it costs owt I DON'T WANT TO LET GO EVEN THOUGH I KNOW I HAVE TO.

There are whole swathes of high-street small businesses that are basically unviable in towns & cities across the UK. The big independent TV/radio specialist, JR Gough's, closed down earlier this year for I think pretty much the same reasons I did. All that's left is Gordon Briggs. In our street, Dean Road, there used to be 2 greengrocers, a baker, a butchers, all businesses that are no longer viable. It used to be a real pleasure shopping in such a street, where you knew the shopkeepers, they knew what you wanted and liked and all that. It's all gone, hasn't been that way for, what, 15 years? It's sad.

The lovely Emma B was ranting today about how her colleague prides himself on finding the cheapest deal for everything, and bought a new kettle for the office for a fiver which promptly broke itself after a week. He took it back to the store and got an entirely new kettle for free, which he was extremely pleased about. It too broke after a week. So back he went, triumphantly returning with another identical kettle.

It made me think of this thread Pash, and I read her your first post here from start to finish. And I confess that I was crying a little too, thinking of your shop which I have never visited. Though not in a way that she could tell, I don't think.

Appliance repair is no longer a viable trade in the UK.

― Pashmina,

I was going to say that starting to read this thread I found it quite quaint and charming that you worked in a fix it shop

Pash, first off congratulations on the job - I know you worked really hard for that electrical certification and it makes me happy to know your effort toward that will be valued and rewarded.

I'm sorry your shop has to close, for now. Because really who knows what could come in the future?

My cousin runs a photography shop in Fred street, and he's been hand-to-mouth for as long as I remember.

I guess we'll get an update this xmas when we do the visits.

Chi Metro should have made it easier to shop there, but it seems to have made it easier to go uptown.

> Pash, first off congratulations on the job - I know you worked really hard for that electrical certification and it makes me happy to know your effort toward that will be valued and rewarded.

this.

it's an end but it's also a start. onwards and upwards.

Aye good luck Pash. One door closes and all that. With what you've been through recently a clean break could do you the world of good.

My trusty old Vax 2000 is still going strong after 14(?) years and has never had a fault.

My wife did Tracer's kettle thing with a Tesco toaster - took 4 replacements to get one that kept working for any length of time.

So much stuff is so cheap it's disposable these days. Would any fix-it shop ever be able to repair a £5 toaster, £7 iron or a £15 DVD player for less than the price of a replacement?

but conversely everything you buy these days seems to have a thing stamped on it which is basically a wheely bin with a line through it - "do not throw away". what are we meant to do with them? kitchen drawers are only so big.

i think you can take them to your local dump/recycling place - i got rid of several old portable tvs i'd inherited from various old housemates a few months back, they have a special skip for all the cathode ray badness...

yeah, but i my case that entails carrying them there myself. no car, no bus route...

and shops should take them back when buying the new stuff. but i can't see this working in argos.

local council, i think, does have some kind of doorstep pickup thing that you can arrange but timing it so that your discarded tv gets picked up without being kicked in beforehand is kinda tricky.

Where all the dead televisions go (telly recycling video)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7747975.stm

(seems to be a lack of mask wearing - aren't CRTs a bit iffy?)

aren't all electronics iffy. lead in all the solder for starters. but yes, crts are worse with "lead, cadmium, phosphor, barium and mercury" according to one internet search site

(in other news, the bbc report on 'would you pay to throw things away?'* that was on Breakfast this morning was illustrated using trucks full of the lbhf orange sacks which are recycling and not refuse.)

* the only answer to which is "what, again?"

watching that footage makes me think of when disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy would destroy televisions while performing onstage. on reflection, i guess that was kind of a dangerous and foolhardy thing to do.

and shops should take them back when buying the new stuff. but i can't see this working in argos.

this is the WEEE initiative i mentioned upthread- as far as i know, it's EU-wide. yes, even argos have to do it.

As to taking sides on fixing vs throwing away, what about just holding onto it and dithering for seven years because there are no decent repair places but you don't want to buy a new one, so you just put up with a DVD player that sometimes forgets to timer-record, one CD player that skips random tracks and another that refuses to play the third-last and second-last tracks of 2/3 of your CDs?

Last I bought a new fridge, the delivery guys happily took my old crummy one away for free, saying there was a charity they could give it to. I was well pleased.

I got a new fridge again this year (the last one was fine, probably still is, but is way too small for 2 foodies), and the delivery guys wouldnt take the old one off me. Now its sitting in the backyard and the inside probably smells horrible.

Anyone want a perfectly good, slightly weather-worn Samsun fridge?

DC01, 03, 04 and 07 are great

Aw, mine's an 08. Been working fine for three years though. Well, three years of not very much hoovering... adjusted for normal usage, probably more like six months.

mine's, i think, a dc02. the original dumpy one but, i think, several revisions on (the ex-landlord had an earlier one and mine has something to stop the valves popping out when you open the lid whereas his didn't)

dyson owners represent...

the tv and video i have that are non-working and just cluttering the place up are about 20 and 15 years old respectively. my first portable tv that i had in university (until they got sniffy about students and tv licenses and i switched to using the old b&w one as that was cheaper) and my first ever nicam stereo vhs recorder bought in a superstore in apsley (£399!). i've bought two more since.

my main tv (25" nicam mitsubishi) is just as old, has been fixed twice, and the tuner has gone but that's ok as i can use the one in the tivo, the vhs or the set top box...