You may have heard of planned obsolescence – the idea that modern products are built in such a way that they will deteriorate or stop working entirely long before they should so that consumers have no choice but to buy a new one.
The theory is backed up by the fact that, undoubtedly, appliances do not last as long as they used to. While previous generations might have kept their washing machine or fridge going for seemingly decades, that kind of thing just doesn’t happen nowadays.
There are also real-world examples of planned obsolescence in action. People will have encountered issues like not being able to find a spare part for an appliance that’s only three years old – so they have no choice but to replace it. Or maybe the software stops being updated so, while the physical device is fine, it starts to become less reliable and harder to maintain.
But really the reason why appliances are giving up far sooner than before is much more complicated than it being purely down to planned obsolescence. Besides, as alluring as such a practice may be for a manufacturer, deploying it would be a risky venture. If you’re building your device in a way that it fails sooner than it should, there’s a good chance the customer isn’t going to come back and buy their replacement from you. And it wouldn’t take long for your products to get a reputation for being unreliable.
So why are appliances less reliable than they used to be?
One major reason is because they’re a lot cheaper now than they used to be.
If you go back to the 1970s or even 1980s, buying a washing machine or a fridge was a major investment. A colour TV and a dryer were luxuries rather than the standard. Buying them required the average couple to save for a considerable amount of time – where as nowadays even a lower-income worker would be able to afford to buy them in a relatively short amount of time.
Even the in past 20 years, the cost of appliances have fallen dramatically.
Looking at the Central Statistics Office data, between January 2003 and May of this year, the base cost of a major household appliance fell by nearly 20%. The cost of small electronic household appliances fell by more than 45%.
Part of that is due to higher competition, and greater economies of scale – there are more people buying appliances now than was the case in the 1970s.
But really the biggest catalyst for the fall in prices is the fact that we’re now importing these machines from the likes of Asia – South Korea and Japan, and more recently China – which can make machines for far cheaper than European or American manufacturers ever could.
And part of how they do that is to use cheaper parts – often replacing metal components with plastic, which breaks more easily. Manufacturing techniques have also improved to the point that it’s possible to replace lots of bolted-together-pieces with one, precision-moulded piece of plastic. That saves on manufacturing costs, but it also reduces the repairability; if one small bit breaks or wears down, the whole thing has to go.
But this dramatic fall in appliance costs come at a time when what the machines can do is far more sophisticated than what our parents or grandparents would have been offered, and that’s adding to their shorter lifespan too.
How?
Old fridges and washing machines (and even TVs) were relatively simple, mechanical machines. They probably didn’t have many settings – they did their job and that was that.
But today the same kinds of appliances are laden down with features – some of which are very valuable to consumers. For example, the fact that a modern washing machine has different spin speeds, different temperature settings, different cycles for certain types of clothing, and sensors that can detect how dirty clothes are and wash accordingly, is all very valuable.
Some people might also love having an ice dispenser on the front of their fridge – though most could probably live without a wifi connection and an LCD display on the door.
But whatever the feature, and their value, it all adds to the complexity of what’s inside. A modern, mid-level appliance probably has more computer chips and sensors inside it than you’d find in a 20-year-old PC.
That means there are just more things that can go wrong – and stop the machine from working. It also may mean that they’re harder to repair – a half-decent DIYer probably could have spotted a rusted or broken part in a mechanical machine, but spotting a glitchy computer chip isn’t quite so easy.
In fact, nowadays even trained technicians might struggle to identify the problem – maybe because the company in question has used proprietary diagnostics software that they don’t have access to. And maybe actually physically accessing the broken part, and swapping it out, isn’t something that can be done easily – or without essentially disassembling the entire machine. Or maybe the replacement part is almost the same cost as buying a new machine.
There’s also a practical element to this too – because getting a mechanic out to look at your appliance, diagnose the problem, order the part and then replace it may take weeks… and if it costs you the same or almost as much as a total replacement, which can be delivered to your door within a day, then repairing doesn’t seem like a very attractive option.
What role does regulation play in this?
This is one of the other things that manufacturers say has contributed to the shorter lifespan of their products.
Because those bulletproof fridges and washing machines from the 1970s didn’t really have all that many rules they had to comply with – but there are loads that apply today, and for good reason.
A modern appliance has to be far safer for a start – it has to pass fire safety standards, it can’t use certain materials and chemicals that are deemed dangerous (like freon in fridges) and it might need to be better insulated to avoid users being burned.
They also have strict rules around energy efficiency and, in some cases, water efficiency. And that has forced changes in the designs, too.
For example, one way to make a washing machine more efficient is to make the drum lighter – so it needs less energy to spin. But by swapping out a heavy material for something light, like plastic, you’re probably going to make it that bit less robust and more prone to failure.
The pipes that transfer the refrigerant around a fridge freezer would previously have been made of copper, which is easy to patch up if it cracks. But now they tend to be aluminium, which is better at transferring temperatures – so more efficient – but also less repairable.
So all of these changes – which have happened for very good reasons – tend to go towards making the machines that bit more prone to breaking, and that bit harder to repair than might have been the case before.
That being said, the European Union has realised that – while energy and water efficiency rules are good, it’s counterproductive if they encourage waste. And so there have been some regulatory steps to try and push back against the disposability of modern appliances.
Following the introduction of new rules last year, manufacturers are now obliged to offer repairs – even to out of warranty goods – for a reasonable amount of money and within a reasonable timeframe. They are also no longer allowed to put up barriers to others manufacturing goods – like using proprietary software or screw types. They also have to offer spare parts at a reasonable price, so others can undertake cost-effective repairs.
There are also efforts underway to encourage repair centres on a local level – so that there are more options for people to take their broken down goods and get them fixed up. That’s something that used to be relatively common many years ago, but they’ve become a lot rarer in recent decades.
Any advice for people who want to try and get the most out of their appliances?
Actually one thing that might help you get an appliance with a longer lifespan is to go for the cheaper models – which seems counterintuitive.
The reason is that they tend to be the ones with the most basic features – and so there’s less inside that can go wrong. They’re usually a bit easier to repair too. So, if you can do without some of the added extras, it will save you money upfront, and potentially down the line too.
Of course cheap and basic doesn’t automatically mean it’ll last – you still should do your research and see which brands have a good reputation on that front.
It’s also worth trying to find if a particular brand or model is easy to repair or not – sites like iFixIt.com have a huge catalogue of reviews of appliances and devices, and they rate them based on their repairability. They often have guides on how to do some repairs yourself, too, which can be useful if you’re handy and it’s a relatively minor problem.
And it will also help if you do minor maintenance on your appliances – depending on what they are that might mean cleaning out or replacing filters regularly, or putting it on a self-clean cycle every now and again.
And you should get your appliances serviced regularly – something many people don’t even consider. But just like a car or a boiler, there are lots of important moving parts in there – so it’s prone to wear and tear. It stands to reason that it would benefit from regular maintenance – and that might help to avoid or delay a major fault that ends up being too expensive or complicated to fix.
