What modern invention/innovation do you wish had *never* been developed?

[LizzieMaine]

By the way, televisions ARE indeed more reliable. The solid state units of th late 1980's seemed to reach a peak of reliability, and most newer instruments are pretty nearly as good, cheaper though they may be.

We've had very poor results with point-of-sale LCD monitors at the theatre. They, inevitably, fail every three years. I've never owned a modern TV, so I can't speak to those. But I will say my grandparents' "Works in A Drawer" Quasar was a pretty good set.

In my perosnal experience from actually working on them, the best-quality TV sets were built between 1946 and 1954. Most of these sets had well-engineered quality components, and point to point wiring. The introduction of printed circuit technology and "highly styled" sets like the Philco Predicta meant a drastic drop in quality by the late fifties. The mid-century-modern sets coveted by modern collectors were, from a service point of view, junk.

And no matter what weird voodoo the electric-guitar crowd believes, "bumble bee" condensers were absolute garbage. They not only fail, they fail explosively.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Flat screen TV's are one of the few modern things that I actually like because they don't weigh a ton like the old TVs. However, I do not look forward to the prospect of replacing it in a few years. But perhaps mine will last a little longer as I still seldom watch TV. I got it mainly because I have housemates and to watch an occasional movie every now and then.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I take it that you do not believe that having four out of seven appliances, units which cost a total of upwards of fifteen thousand dollars, fail in a decade is unacceptable?

I don't believe failure is restricted only to modern appliances. I believe that appliances from the 1920s never failing is the exception, not the rule. And the only appliance I've ever had fail is the hot water heater, which finally gave up the ghost after 28 years. Perhaps I just have good appliance karma.

It appears that you are suggesting that these modern items are more reliable that their predecessors.

Not at all. I'm suggesting that the failure rate is not significantly different, it just seems that way because replacement rather than repair is the economical solution with modern ones.

Perhaps parts are available for some of these older items because folks actually want to repair them.

My point being...repairs on the older ones *are* necessary, hence the parts availability.

 

[LizzieMaine]

\
My point being...repairs on the older ones *are* necessary, hence the parts availability.

I don't think anybody claims that repairs are never necessary. The point is that these appliances were *designed* to be easily serviced in the event that repairs were necessary. Today's appliances are not.

You should see how much fun I've had trying to fix the compressor on a $750 countertop soda cooler at work -- a unit *underengineered* for the demands of the job, and not even designed with a valve for checking or recharging the refrigerant. This isn't some chintzy $150 dorm fridge from Sam's Club -- this is a professional-grade unit that cost real money and was expected to last at "least" ten years according to the slick-tounged devil who sold it to us. It lasted four. Its replacement lasted two. That's fifteen hundred berries into the recycling bin. We'd have done better installing a plain icebox -- we couldn't have used $1500 worth of ice in six years if we'd tried.

My Kelvinator at home, which rolled off the line in Kenosha in November of 1945, has been as far as I can tell, repaired exactly once in its lifetime. It has no fans and no belts to wear out. The compressor is sealed in a bath of oil ensuring permanent lubrication of the moving parts. I replaced the thermostat when I bought it in 1988, and it's been humming along fine ever since. Over that same interval my poor fixed-income mother has run thru three modern refrigerators.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Flat screen TV's are one of the few modern things that I actually like because they don't weigh a ton like the old TVs. However, I do not look forward to the prospect of replacing it in a few years. But perhaps mine will last a little longer as I still seldom watch TV. I got it mainly because I have housemates and to watch an occasional movie every now and then.

I have never had to replace a television because it failed (CRT or LCD). No one I know has ever had a flat screen TV fail. I own seven of them, mainly because my wife loves to watch TV, the oldest being 12 years old. They all run perfectly. I don't think it's a given that you'll have to replace yours after a few years, unless you simply want to upgrade the features.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I don't think anybody claims that repairs are never necessary. The point is that these appliances were designed to be easily serviced in the event that repairs were necessary. Today's appliances are not.

But there is definitely the attitude that because the older ones are easier and cheaper to repair, relative to the cost of a new one, they are somehow of better quality or fail less often. Or more to the point, they were designed to fail. That's not necessarily the case.

 

[F. J.]

Philco bankruptcy . . .

[...]
The introduction of printed circuit technology and "highly styled" sets like the Philco Predicta meant a drastic drop in quality by the late fifties.
[...]

Yep, and at the time, the Predicta was such a flop due to unreliability that Philco was bankrupt within three years.

 

[LizzieMaine]

But there is definitely the attitude that because the older ones are easier and cheaper to repair, relative to the cost of a new one, they are somehow of better quality or fail less often. Or more to the point, they were designed to fail. That's not necessarily the case.

Well, I can look at the compressor in my Kelvinator and compare it to any modern one, and the difference in engineering and build quality is pretty obvious. It's like comparing a Packard to a Yugo.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Well, I can look at the compressor in my Kelvinator and compare it to any modern one, and the difference in engineering and build quality is pretty obvious. It's like comparing a Packard to a Yugo.

And your Kelvinator cost 6 weeks salary in 1930. I could replace mine every year for the cost of yours.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It cost $189.50, OPA ceiling price, in 1945. The sticker is still on the inside door. That's about three weeks pay for a union factory worker, or about $25 down and the rest on Easy Kredit Terms -- even less if your local utility company had a subsidy program. Postwar families had a lot of cash burning holes in their pockets right after V-J Day, so that wasn't an excessive price at all.

It cost me fifty dollars. Twenty-six years ago.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I think of it more along the lines of stewardship. We don't own the planet, or any part of the planet. We're merely using it for the seventy or eighty years we live, and then it passes on to somebody else. What right do any of us have to waste anything?

Just curious, as this raises an interesting point: What type of electrical usage is employed by your era TV set and refrigeration in relation to similar modern appliances of comparable size and other variables, such as BTUs, square footage, etc.? Has anyone ever done objective and impartial study in this area?

 

[vitanola]

But there is definitely the attitude that because the older ones are easier and cheaper to repair, relative to the cost of a new one, they are somehow of better quality or fail less often. Or more to the point, they were designed to fail. That's not necessarily the case.

Right. So a refrigerator which has required service once in seventy-nine years is o more reliable than one which has had a compressor failure and rust-out in twelve. An oven which has required two or three new control units in a decade is just as reliable as one which needed only to be re-calibrated after nearly eighty years of service.

You know, manufacturers plan the life cycles of their appliances very carefully. The original DR series of GE refrigerator had a design life of twenty-five years. The engineers went a bit overboard with the CK, designing it to last for fifty. On the other hand, Frigidaire is currently assuming a design life of between seven and ten years for even their most expensive models. For dishwashers they are assuming five to seven years. Couldn't we strike a happy medium?

As far as cost, well, it seems that high-end appliances are just as short-lived as their lower priced brethren.
One cannot, it seems, buy long life at any price these days.

 

[HudsonHawk]

It cost $189.50, OPA ceiling price, in 1945. The sticker is still on the inside door. That's about three weeks pay for a union factory worker, or about $25 down and the rest on Easy Kredit Terms -- even less if your local utility company had a subsidy program. Postwar families had a lot of cash burning holes in their pockets right after V-J Day, so that wasn't an excessive price at all.

1945? So it's a modern one.

 

[HudsonHawk]

One cannot, it seems, buy long life at any price these days.

I cannot, it seems, buy short life. Honestly, the problems you guys are describing are so foreign to me or anyone else I've ever known.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just curious, as this raises an interesting point: What type of electrical usage is employed by your era TV set and refrigeration in relation to similar modern appliances of comparable size and other variables, such as BTUs, square footage, etc.? Has anyone ever done objective and impartial study in this area?

The TV set has got seventeen tubes -- so that's obviously going use more energy than a modern set, although when you're using it you don't need to run the furnace because of the heat it throws off. But I only use it an hour or two a week, if that, so the energy cost is not daunting.

I don't know if any studies have been done in the last twenty years, but I do know that my fridge uses about 475-500 KWH a year depending on how often I get around to defrosting it. Most pre-1950 refrigerators, as long as the gaskets are supple, would fall into that range because they have small compartments and don't have "frost free" features, which are responsible for sucking the most energy on modern units. A GE Monitor Top, as Vitanola can confirm, will use maybe half of that, because of the efficiency of having the compressor mounted on top of the box. My fridge, unfortunately, has the compressor mounted in the bottom, which does end up costing more to run.

 

[LizzieMaine]

1945? So it's a modern one.

It's actually a warmed-over, if you'll pardon the expression, 1941-42 model. When production restarted at war's end, there was no time to come up with any new designs, so the last prewar civilian designs manufactured were used.

 

[HudsonHawk]

675 KWH per year is within guidelines for about a 28 sf commercial unit. For a standard 18-22 cf household unit, it's about half that.

Edit: Obviously that should be "cubic feet", not square feet.

 

[LizzieMaine]

675 KWH per year is within guidelines for about a 28 sf commercial unit. For a standard 18-22 sf household unit, it's about half that.

675 was cut and pasted from a post I made a few years ago before replacing the door gasket. I've edited to reflect that 475-500 is about what I'm getting now based on the number of minutes it runs per hour.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Just curious, as this raises an interesting point: What type of electrical usage is employed by your era TV set and refrigeration in relation to similar modern appliances of comparable size and other variables, such as BTUs, square footage, etc.? Has anyone ever done objective and impartial study in this area?

There is a lot of research on energy efficiency our there, and it's a no-brainer that modern appliances are more energy efficient. That said, it's a little bit apples and oranges comparing 1940s refrigerators with modern ones, as they older ones were not nearly as large and didn't have the features.

 

[HudsonHawk]

675 was cut and pasted from a post I made a few years ago before replacing the door gasket. I've edited to reflect that 475-500 is about what I'm getting now based on the number of minutes it runs per hour.

I'm assuming yours is what...6-8 cubic feet in capacity?