4 ms·

Less a specific technology and more a mindset. Repairing things around the house. Today, it's almost always rational to throw out the broken thing and buy a new

by sowbug 4y ago

Less a specific technology and more a mindset. Repairing things around the house. Today, it's almost always rational to throw out the broken thing and buy a new one. There are a bunch of reasons why that's true: cost of one's own labor, lack of discrete replacement parts, lack of repair documentation, improvements in technology since original purchase, risk of further breakage, risk of injury to self, etc. But the real cost is that people generally don't know how things work anymore. They're just black boxes, even simple things like a coffee maker or a clothes dryer. Which further reduces the demand for repairability, which seems like a downward spiral toward everything being disposable.

bee_rider 4y ago
Also it is just a nice feeling, every time you use something you've repaired. I'm not very handy, but every time I open the door that doesn't squeak anymore it cheers me up a little.
- TheCapn 4y ago
  >Also it is just a nice feeling, every time you use something you've repaired. I feel it's my personality, but as soon as I fix anything I am overcome with anxiety every time I'm near it for fear the issue will return or that my repair was faulty and inevitably prone to cause further damage. I don't know why I get this way. In spite of all my worries I've yet to truly fuck up an appliance I've repaired (furnace, microwave, dish washer, workout equipment, countless car repairs, electrical, plumbing, carpentry...the works). As far as I've ever bothered to explore the feeling, I think I have an inherent trust that products are manufactured with care and attention while my repairs are often ad-hoc suitable replacements with salvaged parts, or even just duct tape and glue. Experience should tell me that things are often built to minimal passing standards so this idea that a manufacturing line that spits out dozens(?)/hundreds(?) of these products in a day are any better than my attempts. Lack of documentation is often a big one. If my repair seems to make more sense why wasn't it done like this before? Am I missing something that should be considered? What caused it to break that I haven't addressed? etc.
  - Delk 4y ago
    I'm totally guessing here, but apart from just being able to trust professional design and manufacturing more, could there be some kind of a "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" effect there? If it were socially normal and expected to try and repair things, and you did happen to blunder, that would be a normal blunder that everybody makes. But if you go against the grain and try to fix things yourself when it's becoming less and less expected to do that, that could make a mistake feel worse. Of course one might quite naturally just feel more responsible for a possible mistake when doing things oneself hands-on rather than when delegating things to someone else in any case. Not saying you should, but it'd be quite natural to.
    - TheCapn 4y ago
      I think your last point is more close to it. If it broke and I replaced it with a broken appliance then the manufacturer/distributor is to blame. If it broke, and I broke it worse (made it unrepairable) then it's my fault. Sure, I was trying to be frugal and save money doing it myself, but having to admit fault to a professional could be embarrassing. Easier to displace blame instead of facing truths I guess? Despite repairing this much stuff, I still consider myself a pretty bad mechanic, maybe I'm just too hard on myself.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I think it is not totally unreasonable. Like I said, I'm not super handy, so when I do amateur fixes I stick to things incapable of catching fire mostly.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    I’m frightened to repair things because I own a house, and I’m afraid of wreaking havoc, dirtying a wall, having to repaid a whole room… I hope it will pass as I learn to do things here.
- desmondw 4y ago
  FYI if your doors make other noises when they open it could be the paint on the inside edge sticking against the frame. In that case, apply paraffin wax to prevent a seal.
- 13of40 4y ago
  I agree. I just got hearing aids, and I've had to oil the hinges on several doors in my house.
xpe 4y ago
I support public policy that finds ways to internalize full-lifecycle externalities. See also: "cradle to grave" manufacturing.
l33tbro 4y ago
In my experience it just comes down to time and competing priorities. Would I love to deep dive into my fuse box and learn how to rewire it? Very much so. But the limited free time I have needs to go into side projects and life goals. I say this having just come out the other side of a long period of learning how stuff in my house works. While it has certainly been satisfying, I'm looking forward to just paying people to do things in future so I can focus more on what compels me.
- kukx 4y ago
  This. Do the most valuable thing you can. If repairing provides significantly less value than your other work, do not repair. It is great that we can afford so much stuff now. Thanks to it we can spend more time on helping the environment.
dysoco 4y ago
I feel like this is largely a product of USA's society and maybe Europe; but here in Argentina I think it's absolutely the norm to try and fix things multiple times before giving up and buying something new; and many things are now not that expensive anymore, it's just in the culture. Just to be clear you don't always fix them yourself; it's more common to pay someone who knows what they're doing.
- culopatin 4y ago
  Can confirm. Now in the US I’m frustrated at how hard it is to find parts locally
ccorcos 4y ago
I feel like there's a city vs suburbs correlation here too. If you live in a city, (nevermind the fact that you're probably renting and paying way to much in rent consider fixing anything yourself) you probably don't have the space and the tools to enjoy taking apart and fixing things. In the suburbs, you probably have a garage and a side yard where you have the space to entertain these kinds of hobbies. Just recollecting: the last thing I fixed was a bolt that broke off inside a nut that was welded to a pipe. Luckily I have a workshop table, a vice, and a drill with various attachments. All of this takes space.
- bredren 4y ago
  > If you live in a city, (nevermind the fact that you're probably renting and paying way to much in rent consider fixing anything yourself) you probably don't have the space and the tools to enjoy taking apart and fixing things. The way housing is now, overpaying for rent is just “paying rent.” There is no special circumstance as a renter where repairs come faster or with less pliant and nuanced communication to the landlord. The places are actually worse, because competition for below market single family homes, (which are basically always in need of repair,) is extremely fierce. My experience is landlords don’t fix up anything and you have to pick and choose the most important stuff for them to fix. Technically are they on the hook to fix everything? Maybe? But only people who don’t rent or haven’t rented in too long to remember think this is actually what happens. And anyway there is some implicit understanding that since they are not absolutely gouging you like every other landlord, you owe it to them to not ask for too much. So implicitly, you either have to learn to fix things or have a home that is sorta kinda broken / jenk six ways from Sunday. Either learn how to fix stuff or live the life of death by a thousand paper cuts.
rkuykendall-com 4y ago
> risk of injury to self This is the big one for me. This will be very alien to a big portion of HN users, but I am NOT a hardware hacker. Browse the DIY subreddits and for every single impressive thing someone has done, you can read the comments about how they have somehow stumbled into building a death trap for themselves and their family. I guess professionals are probably no better, but what else can you do.

by sowbug 4y ago

bee_rider 4y ago

Also it is just a nice feeling, every time you use something you've repaired. I'm not very handy, but every time I open the door that doesn't squeak anymore it cheers me up a little.

TheCapn 4y ago
>Also it is just a nice feeling, every time you use something you've repaired. I feel it's my personality, but as soon as I fix anything I am overcome with anxiety every time I'm near it for fear the issue will return or that my repair was faulty and inevitably prone to cause further damage. I don't know why I get this way. In spite of all my worries I've yet to truly fuck up an appliance I've repaired (furnace, microwave, dish washer, workout equipment, countless car repairs, electrical, plumbing, carpentry...the works). As far as I've ever bothered to explore the feeling, I think I have an inherent trust that products are manufactured with care and attention while my repairs are often ad-hoc suitable replacements with salvaged parts, or even just duct tape and glue. Experience should tell me that things are often built to minimal passing standards so this idea that a manufacturing line that spits out dozens(?)/hundreds(?) of these products in a day are any better than my attempts. Lack of documentation is often a big one. If my repair seems to make more sense why wasn't it done like this before? Am I missing something that should be considered? What caused it to break that I haven't addressed? etc.
- Delk 4y ago
  I'm totally guessing here, but apart from just being able to trust professional design and manufacturing more, could there be some kind of a "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" effect there? If it were socially normal and expected to try and repair things, and you did happen to blunder, that would be a normal blunder that everybody makes. But if you go against the grain and try to fix things yourself when it's becoming less and less expected to do that, that could make a mistake feel worse. Of course one might quite naturally just feel more responsible for a possible mistake when doing things oneself hands-on rather than when delegating things to someone else in any case. Not saying you should, but it'd be quite natural to.
  - TheCapn 4y ago
    I think your last point is more close to it. If it broke and I replaced it with a broken appliance then the manufacturer/distributor is to blame. If it broke, and I broke it worse (made it unrepairable) then it's my fault. Sure, I was trying to be frugal and save money doing it myself, but having to admit fault to a professional could be embarrassing. Easier to displace blame instead of facing truths I guess? Despite repairing this much stuff, I still consider myself a pretty bad mechanic, maybe I'm just too hard on myself.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I think it is not totally unreasonable. Like I said, I'm not super handy, so when I do amateur fixes I stick to things incapable of catching fire mostly.
- eastbound 4y ago
  I’m frightened to repair things because I own a house, and I’m afraid of wreaking havoc, dirtying a wall, having to repaid a whole room… I hope it will pass as I learn to do things here.
desmondw 4y ago
FYI if your doors make other noises when they open it could be the paint on the inside edge sticking against the frame. In that case, apply paraffin wax to prevent a seal.
13of40 4y ago
I agree. I just got hearing aids, and I've had to oil the hinges on several doors in my house.

xpe 4y ago

I support public policy that finds ways to internalize full-lifecycle externalities. See also: "cradle to grave" manufacturing.

l33tbro 4y ago

In my experience it just comes down to time and competing priorities. Would I love to deep dive into my fuse box and learn how to rewire it? Very much so. But the limited free time I have needs to go into side projects and life goals. I say this having just come out the other side of a long period of learning how stuff in my house works. While it has certainly been satisfying, I'm looking forward to just paying people to do things in future so I can focus more on what compels me.

kukx 4y ago
This. Do the most valuable thing you can. If repairing provides significantly less value than your other work, do not repair. It is great that we can afford so much stuff now. Thanks to it we can spend more time on helping the environment.

dysoco 4y ago

I feel like this is largely a product of USA's society and maybe Europe; but here in Argentina I think it's absolutely the norm to try and fix things multiple times before giving up and buying something new; and many things are now not that expensive anymore, it's just in the culture. Just to be clear you don't always fix them yourself; it's more common to pay someone who knows what they're doing.

culopatin 4y ago
Can confirm. Now in the US I’m frustrated at how hard it is to find parts locally

ccorcos 4y ago

I feel like there's a city vs suburbs correlation here too. If you live in a city, (nevermind the fact that you're probably renting and paying way to much in rent consider fixing anything yourself) you probably don't have the space and the tools to enjoy taking apart and fixing things. In the suburbs, you probably have a garage and a side yard where you have the space to entertain these kinds of hobbies. Just recollecting: the last thing I fixed was a bolt that broke off inside a nut that was welded to a pipe. Luckily I have a workshop table, a vice, and a drill with various attachments. All of this takes space.

bredren 4y ago
> If you live in a city, (nevermind the fact that you're probably renting and paying way to much in rent consider fixing anything yourself) you probably don't have the space and the tools to enjoy taking apart and fixing things. The way housing is now, overpaying for rent is just “paying rent.” There is no special circumstance as a renter where repairs come faster or with less pliant and nuanced communication to the landlord. The places are actually worse, because competition for below market single family homes, (which are basically always in need of repair,) is extremely fierce. My experience is landlords don’t fix up anything and you have to pick and choose the most important stuff for them to fix. Technically are they on the hook to fix everything? Maybe? But only people who don’t rent or haven’t rented in too long to remember think this is actually what happens. And anyway there is some implicit understanding that since they are not absolutely gouging you like every other landlord, you owe it to them to not ask for too much. So implicitly, you either have to learn to fix things or have a home that is sorta kinda broken / jenk six ways from Sunday. Either learn how to fix stuff or live the life of death by a thousand paper cuts.

rkuykendall-com 4y ago

> risk of injury to self This is the big one for me. This will be very alien to a big portion of HN users, but I am NOT a hardware hacker. Browse the DIY subreddits and for every single impressive thing someone has done, you can read the comments about how they have somehow stumbled into building a death trap for themselves and their family. I guess professionals are probably no better, but what else can you do.