Is It Worth Repairing A Washing Machine
A jet plane is landing in my laundry. Or taking off, so loud is the noise coming from my to the lowest degree favourite room in the business firm.
It's my thirteen-year quondam front loader washing car that has accompanied me through four firm moves and 2 kids.
As the motorcar still works, I suspect a minor ailment. "Probably an underwire from a bra stuck under the pulsate" is the provisional phone diagnosis over the phone from the starting time repairer I contact.
But information technology turns out to be a more serious condition. "Worn bearings." A textbook instance.
The quote for repair — $400-500 — is quickly accompanied past the advice that has become so commonplace for appliances, gadgets and devices: "Information technology'south not worth repairing, it'll be cheaper to buy a new one."
The logic is simple. An equivalent new auto is currently on sale for $535 (interestingly, almost half the cost I paid for mine back in 2004). Given my auto'southward age, if I practise decide to spend the equivalent money on repair, in that location is a significant risk that something else might become wrong soon
A second opinion costs me $55 to obtain and the quote is even dearer — $500-600.
"It'southward done well, 13 years is a adept innings for a washing machine," is the consensus of everyone I speak to in the industry.
The do-information technology-yourself-with-help choice
Inspired by the ABC'due south War on Waste, I consider using a repair cafe. This fabulous initiative, which encourages you to work alongside skilled volunteers, opens the prospect of a repair taking significant time and elbow grease but less coin.
A spare parts supplier confirms that the bearings are still bachelor for my model — $90 (plus postage stamp).
Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and correct arrows to seek, up and down arrows for book.
My local repair cafe tells me they are willing to have a go. But they are merely open on Saturday mornings, when my husband works and I morph into a soccer mum. And I'd need get the 65-kilogram machine down a steep flight of stairs and into a non-existent trailer to get it there.
I have doubts near how achievable a repair is. I turn to that mainstay of self-aid, YouTube, and settle in to scout a surprisingly entertaining video showing how to replace washing machine bearings.
I kickoff optimistic, despite the clear warning: "This is a large job, non for the feint hearted." Viii minutes into the 17-minute video, I am decidedly feint hearted. The skilled repairer has removed 9 different components, each requiring differently tricky manoeuvres.
I am painfully aware that each stride then will need to be reversed to rebuild the automobile at the end.
Where does recycling go?
But for environmental reasons, I'm notwithstanding reluctant to ditch my car, particularly after seeing the impacts of our throw-away culture on the War on Waste and 4 Corners recently.
The manufacturer of my electric current model (and likely the brand I would buy once more) speaks confidently of the water- and energy-saving aspects of their products simply has less to say well-nigh issues created by their disposal. Their advice on the question of repair versus replace is that this an private decision. Unsurprisingly, they strongly discourage non-authorised repair attempts.
My machine is not their problem. Manufacturers don't take to deal with their products at the wrong end of their lifespan.
The store where I am probable to buy a new machine offers to take my one-time motorcar away for $20. They are uninterested in telling me what happens to these discarded appliances and I am told, surprisingly rudely, by the head function that they can't aid.
I ask the warehouse of my local store how they dispose of ditched whitegoods. "They are picked up and go to landfill," i staff member tells me. Another gives me the names and numbers of two people who come to collect the waste product. This leads me on a murky goose hunt.
Their principal collector hangs up on me more than once after I place myself as a writer and doesn't return my call. But the other is happy to talk: "We have them abroad, remove any plastic contaminants and the residual, which is mainly stainless steel, is crushed up and sold to a metal recycling visitor."
I speak with this next company in the chain. They say are one of the earth's leading publicly traded metal and electronics recyclers. Sounds promising merely then again, so did the big waste companies featured on Four Corners who concluded up disposing recyclable materials into illegal landfill dumps.
Will my old washing machine become recycled if it is taken away by the deliverers of a new one? I estimate the likelihood is less than 50 per cent.
Even if it is recycled, the energy needed to practise this — as well as produce a new washing machine — volition event in a considerable impact on the environment.
Money and fourth dimension win
Environmentally, repairing is clearly the sounder option. But on cost and convenience, it makes more than sense to replace the machine.
The numbers speak and my decision is fabricated: I volition buy a new machine and hope that my erstwhile 1 will exist recycled.
I wish I could exist more sure about the implications and I promise that next fourth dimension I will make a dissimilar option.
The hope for next time includes the possibility of Commonwealth of australia following the lead of Sweden where, thanks to legislation introduced earlier this year, I could have claimed half the cost of the repairs every bit a taxation-break and in doing so, tilted us all away from our throw-abroad civilisation.
Vivienne Pearson is a freelance author.
Posted , updated
Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-20/repair-or-replace-broken-washing-machines/8957918
Posted by: schoonovercoulth1939.blogspot.com
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