Yes I still stand by this. And it seems to be getting worse for appliances in America.

I’d like to focus on that part about “don’t replace it until you need to.”

Since I wrote this, I’ve had to replace the main element in my oven, two burners, two of the plugs that burners go into, and the controller switch on one of the burners.

Instead of buying a new oven, I went to that place in town that looks like an appliance graveyard. You know the one. It’s in an industrial area and it has no sign. It has no hours posted. Just a bunch of appliances piled in the parking lot.

I brought the broken part with me so that they could find the exact replacement. I didn’t pay for someone to come out and diagnose the problem and then pay for a brand new OEM replacement so the average fix was under $20 instead of $120.

You might not have the skills to pull the broken part out. YouTube is your friend. Maybe you don’t have the tools to pull the broken part out. Your friend is your friend.

When I say don’t replace it until you need to, I mean it. For most appliances the cost to repair is way cheaper than the cost to replace.

My refrigerator died. This was not the first time. It’s always something with a compressor on our refrigerator. In this case, the entire compressor was shot. I couldn’t replace just a small part and I had to get a new appliance. I found the most basic model I could that had the same capacity. Unfortunately that meant getting a ice and water dispenser. They aren’t hooked up. If you never hooked them up and you learn how to use ice cube trays, you will never have to worry about that part going bad and you will never have to replace the water filter.

I was a little worried because the thing never stopped running. So I hooked up a device that tells you what the amperage and voltage is so you can calculate your energy costs. Turns out the new refrigerators basically run all the time but actually run way more efficiently and ended up costing way less money to power. And the fact that it’s basically always on means it’s not going through that startup cycle. And just like with a car the less you turn something off and on the longer it will last.

There’s one exception I might make. There are some new ovens out there that instead of having a storage drawer underneath have a battery bank. If the power fails, you can plug your refrigerator into your oven. You can take advantage of off-peak power charging. These are expensive but that extra feature could be a real lifesaver.

Tips for buying a fridge or any major appliance:

• Don’t until you absolutely need to, because…
• Most modern ones are crap and won’t last more than 5 years, but…
• The EU just made it so that any new major appliance must be repaired by the maker for 10 years because they are sick of all the waste created by cheaply made crap
• When you do buy one make sure it is one that could be legally sold in the EU so you can get one that lasts.
• Do not get any fancy features.
• The more features an appliance has the more it costs, obs, but…
• The more features an appliance has the more things there are to break which means more long term cost of ownership.

Ice cube trays still work when the ice maker says to change the $40 filter.
Any smart appliances (IoT device) is a network liability and the next thing you know your dishwasher is part of a botnet hoggin up your bandwidth and there will never be a firmware update to fix it.