"Right to repair" appliances.

One reason that some things are 'too cheap to repair' is that they are made in faraway places by badly paid people who cannot themselves afford to buy them.

In the long run that will have to level up, which does actually mean buying new will get more expensive, if only because of recycling taxation.

And actually the financial position currently makes a total mockery of the trade secrecy that surrounds the circuit diagrams and so forth. What is going to happen - some one else nick the circuit and make it cheaper ?  Software can be copied for minimal outlay, hardware cannot.

When I used to augment my income by repairing TV and radio equipment in the 1980s and early 90s, circuits, assembly diagrams and all the rest were readily available - its not some new and strange idea. It may be that in the developed world, the economic mean most of the repair work this enables will be by enthusiastic hobbyists, rather than businesses, but that is still achieving the stated aim of reducing the volumes going to landfill.

mapj1:

. . .

And actually the financial position currently makes a total mockery of the trade secrecy that surrounds the circuit diagrams and so forth. What is going to happen - some one else nick the circuit and make it cheaper ?  Software can be copied for minimal outlay, hardware cannot.

When I used to augment my income by repairing TV and radio equipment in the 1980s and early 90s, circuits, assembly diagrams and all the rest were readily available - its not some new and strange idea. . . .

Yes, I remember when service sheets for audio-visual equipment were readily available, and I used them to good effect. Around 1991 I wanted to add a pre-amp socket to a music centre so that I could record vinyl records onto a medium other than compact cassette. My enquiry to the manufacturer was refused, with the reason: "It's illegal for us to provide them; the user could electrocute himself." If this was indeed the law and not just some protectionist arrangement then it is just another example of nanny-state interference.


I am not sure it is desirable for every type of appliance to be long lasting. Refrigerators and freezers seem to have very long lives and need little maintenance. However newer types are much more energy-efficient, so the economics of continuing to run old fridges are questionable. I'll be saying more about this in a post I have planned for the near future. Watch this space!

Nothing will change.The fools don't realise that the parts are a small cost on a lot of repairs. So we will keep chucking things away in landfill until they relent and let us have the parts. Otherwise we will get them off a friendly Chinaman who hasn't paid for the IPR!

You could make a fridges and ovens  with Aerogel insulation, instead of  polyurethane and  fibreglass respectively, have something thinner walled, or more efficient, and more fireproof into the bargain.

Right now Spacewall and Thermaslim are very expensive and exotic oddities, but at about twice the thermal resistance of polyurethane, and four times that of rockwool, I expect the time will soon come when appliances with panels of such things for insulation are pretty commonplace.

I don't know what's in our new fridge-freezer, but it wasn't cheap. ?