throw away society

16011996

its always worth checking in your local paper re tv's videos etc. we have a bloke locally who i found in the paper, he replaced a colour tube i think it was when the picture went all funny, cost me £15, cheaper than a new tv. there are people who do still do the service, its just finding them. i agree though re kettles etc, its ridiculous to pay more for repairs. on this theme i also hate extended warrentlys they offer in places like comet etc which are dearer than a new item in some cases anyway.

lipidicman

....and are covering something you are entitled to for free.

It's just taking money from the unwitting if you ask me!

se999

Hester for things that are working why not post them on freecycle, https://www.freecycle.org

Basically people register as members and can post things they want to give away, or things they need. Normally you have to do a post offering something first.

There are lots of groups all over the UK and worldwide.

It's amazing the range of things offered and wanted.

Edit - It is normally upto the person who wants the item to arrange collection, so your lack of transport isn't a problem for offering items.

maryb

nightsong wrote:

Re Dualit toasters, we had one and the element broke after a couple of years. I realise I could have had it repaired, but that would have cost more than a new toaster. I'm all for spending more (a LOT more in the case of Dualit) for something that lasts longer, but this was simply uneconomic. Not impressed. We now have an inherited, ultra-cheap toaster which has been making toast quite happily for the last 18 months

In general though, I completely agree with the sentiments here. Our 14-year-old Renault Espace has finally passed on to a new owner, and should have years more service in it. The garage told us, though, that you'd never get that sort of longevity out of a new Espace. Sad, isn't it.

We have a Dualit toaster and the elements were always going, it was really shoddy quality. However they have a new design for the element now and it seems (fingers crossed) to be slightly more reliable. They were trading on their brand image rather than being genuine solid quality. We also had a Dualit kettle which packed up after a couple of years. Replaced it with a Kenwood which works also has a nice retro design and cost a lot less.

I have replaced several parts on my old Prestige pressure cooker - does anyone know if they still make them? - I know Prestige were in difficulties a few years back but survived and you see saucepans by Prestige in the shops but I have not seen the pressure cookers for ages

mah_jong

lipidicman wrote:

This can't be true as goods have to last for a reasonable period. ie you can make the manufacturer repair it after their paltry 1 year warranty has expired. I remember noting that a TV could be reasonable expected to last at least 5 years

Am doing well with my 18 year old set then... mind you it did have a 'dry joint' (??) seen to, a year or 2 ago !!

maryb

A lot of people think that with Sony you are just paying for the brand name but we have a Sony TV which was mended more than once and was then as good as new. The engineer told me that the old Sonys keep going for ever with just the occasional bit needing fixing (usually just seems to involve a bit of soldering from what I have seen). He also showed me how to access the 'engineers menu' so that you can adjust things like the horizontal hold when it goes. If you do a google search foe repairs to your make of television there are sites out there which will show you how to access the codes for other televisions.

that TV is still going strong 15 years later.

On printers - my sister has our old PC as she only needs it as a wordprocessor. It runs on Windows 95 and doesn't have any USB ports. So when her printer packed up we thought she would have to get a new computer just to be able to replace the printer. Then we found a cheap laser printer/scanner/copier in PC World which had both USB and parallel ports. That has been such a good buy - it has already paid for itself in the saving on cartridges plus the convenience of not having it run out of ink the whole time. It was actually cheaper than the colour ink jet printers we were looking for. So if you mainly want black and white printing I would recommend looking at the cheaper lasers

lipidicman

Yes If you do B&W printing then lasers pay for themselves pretty quickly, cheaper to print and higher quality.

Interesting about the engineering menu on tvs - I might do a hunt myself.

Soldering is usually the problem. Dry joints often lead to a whole unit being faulty and they can take years before the poor soldering reveals itself in that catastrophic fault. Soldering is hard to do right - I am rubbish at it!

angela110660

[QUOTE=Hester

Ditto with recycling plastic, I'd happily wash it all out, sort it into the different types of plastic, but there are no facilities in my borough to recycle the stuff. It is exasperating, I want to do something to enable my child to inherit a world which is not one giant trash can![/QUOTE]
I agree with you. We are lucky that we have a car and can take things to our local dump where they pick out bitz to sell or recycle. Someone told me that a video recorder is doing really well to last 3 years these days! Ours is 12 years old and still fine but now that I have written this....
Plastic can be a problem to dispose of but we are allowed to recycle some of it in our fortnightly collection bin. However, I have to say that I only buy glass bottles for ketchup etc and I have the milkman bring the bottles so I can return them. When we were in the USA recently, it broke my heart to put plastic and glass in the normal binbag - we could not find a recycling bin for love nor money and we looked I can assure you. When this country tries so hard it is very frustrating to go over there and see the waste and over packaging of things. By the way they have problems with landfill resources too coz it was highlighted on a local news programme I watched.

Butterfly_Brain

My friend who is a washing machine engineer says that the machines are not made to last the new plastic drums are the worst because they split easily it only takes someone to forget to take something out of their pocket and hey presto you need a new drum - if you put the cost of parts, labour and VAT together you may as well buy a new machine it works out cheaper - what a con

mioliere

For decades now, manufacturers have gone along the lines of 'built-in obsolescence', ensuring that we buy goods that are difficult or impossible to repair, so we end up throwing them away and replacing them with new. It keeps them in business but it's about time the powers that be put a stop to it. If they really believed in global warming and saving the planet and its resources, it wouldn't be allowed. It makes it so much more difficult to re-use, recycle and make do and mend.

This makes interesting reading http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/richard_morrison/article1373899.ece