How Did They Used To Build Them Anyway?. . .
“They don’t build ‘em like they used to, eh?” We’ve heard these words or uttered them ourselves about innumerable things! From appliances, buildings, cars, all the way back to the engineering legends of the old Roman roads, are we just remembering the good ones that survived or were they actually built better back then? Like a lot of things in life, the short and unsatisfying answer is, “It’s complicated.”
So let’s not go with the short answer! Join me as we question the assumptions behind, “they don’t build ‘em like they used to” in a way that keeps this phrase from being the conversational cul-de-sac it so often is. How DID they used to build them anyway?
What Used To Be Worse?
Efficiency of Operation
Wherever you come down on the conversation regarding the environment, energy prices are going up and it’s good to be reasonably efficient with the resources at your disposal, all other things being equal. With that in mind, new appliances are more energy efficient on average. How much more? It depends on the appliance and time frame we are looking at. A study from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers found that from 1981 to 2013 freezers had increased in efficiency by 63%, clothes washers by 102%, dishwashers by 123%, and refrigerators by 217.5%. Obviously how that affects your energy bill and your household’s bottom line is a function of how your electricity is billed in your area. But it does beg the question, at what point is it worth replacing the old one with the new one on the merits of efficiency alone? I can’t answer that question for you, it will take some figuring with the facts and figures local to your area, but to help you get close, a report from Dovetail Partners, Inc. summarizes “life cycle costing studies tend to show optimum replacement after 16 to 18 years of service...” if primarily considering the economic factors, not the environmental factors.
Purchase Cost
It can be difficult to figure exact price differences between different decades when inflation distorts our perception of the actual dollar amounts. Sometimes the wistful remberings of how great things used to be can colour our idea of just how expensive some things were, appliances included. If you look at the price of a typical dishwasher found in the Wards Christmas catalog in 1981 you can see its for sale ($60 off!) for $359.88. Wow! So how do we convert that to today’s dollars, and once we do that, we need to account for how difficult or easy it was to get those dollars. The model that accounts for those factors is called the “time-cost”, where you figure the amount of hours it would have taken the average worker to earn the money to make the purchase. For instance, according to a report from the American Enterprise Institute, a basic dishwasher from Sears in 2015 would have a price tag of $349.99, just a bit cheaper than the $359.88 one from Wards. However, the 2015 Sears dishwasher would take the average income earner just over two 8-hour work days to save for, while the 1981 Wards dishwasher would require six 8-hour work days!
Fewer Features
We often associate substantial weight of an object with quality or durability. That may well be true, but are we willing to tolerate more heft for less functionality? The renowned “Dependable Care” washer (as produced between 1994 and 1997) is recorded as weighing a full 200lb. A comparable level of machine from 2022, a top loading washer from Maytag is listed at 139lb. One is built heavier for sure, but the tub sizes tell another part of the story. The Dependable Care has a tub capacity of 2.5 cubic feet and the 2022 Maytag has a tub capacity of 5.3 cubic feet. Not only is the tub smaller in the Dependable Care but it doesn’t have a sanitize cycle, or a cycle for cleaning the washer itself, or an easy close lid, or spin as fast, or even have a built-in faucet for convenience. As good as the Dependable Care was, it was not as fully featured as what people expect nowadays.
Survivor Bias
It is quite difficult to get precise numbers for how long home appliances used to last. Most of the evidence we rely on to make that claim is personal or anecdotal. What we can see personally or hear in anecdotes are the machines that lasted an exceptional number of years. These stories get told and repeated with pride. The stories about the hundreds (or thousands?) that did not last do not get told. They are lost and forgotten unless recorded in statistics. This is “Survivor Bias”, we remember the ones that lasted, forget the ones that did not. How big of a factor is this? It is difficult to tell without accurate statistics to share, but we know there are many that have not lasted since many thousands were made and now the survivors are relatively few.
What Used To Be Better?
Buying Habits
When talking appliance sales, if a consumer enters a store on the hunt for a washer that’s going to last like the one still in grandma’s basement, the sales staff may take them to the best options available to them, higher end machines that cost upwards of $2500. Many consider the price, continue to browse, and land on a set that costs a small fraction of that. The lower end set gets sold, earns its spot on the sales floor, and will be statistically less likely to last as long as the more expensive contemporary option. How many times does the more expensive option have to not be sold before the manager of that store decides it is no longer worth the valuable floor space it takes up? Play this cycle out many times over in many many locations and manufacturers hear the signal loud and clear, most people vote with their dollars to say they want cheaper appliances. Some people don’t, but there are still premium brands out there manufactured to an extremely high standard, but they are usually hard to find, expensive to deliver, and difficult to find service for, depending on where you live. It is a frustrating truth to stomach, but it is true, “they don’t buy ‘em like they used to”.
There’s a lot to appreciate around how appliances and other home goods used to be in the “good old days”. Sometimes the appliances from those days were able to keep on going because of their innate hardiness. Sometimes they needed service too but it may have been easier to tackle a problem from start to finish than it is now. Let’s look at some of the factors that lead that direction. First, the complexity of the machines, second, the servicability of the parts, third, the cost of labour.
Simpler Machines
The machines themselves were generally simpler than ones that exist today, though if you open one up it can look confusing as bundles of wires zig zag all over the place. Today, a lot of the functions that were handled in an analog manner are now handled in a digital manner, and what that means is the tangle of wires that exists on some older appliances is actually miniaturized and traced on a board instead. When the components that make up a machine are all bigger and simpler, as well as the wires and switches are there to trace, what you see is what you get. The machine doesn’t make “decisions”, it’s clockwork. It doesn’t follow an algorithm with fuzzy logic on a chip, it works more like gears and cogs.
The components themselves that make up those “clockwork” relationships were bigger and able to be taken apart and repaired themselves. Electrical contacts could be switched out, or filed and cleaned. Timers could be adjusted or rebuilt, springs could be tightened or loosened, and not everything was proprietary.
Labour Costs
One might object that these things are still possible now! There are some technicians that do repair boards, and even if you don’t there are refurbishing services. Technicians rewire appliances, don’t they? Can’t they still rebuild timers and switches? Well, yes, that is true. However, it is the cost of labour relative to the cost to replace the entire appliance that keeps some of these older repair practices from continuing to be commonplace. The cost of living used to be cheaper, meaning service calls could be cheaper still, and the appliances themselves used to be more expensive so more extensive repairs could be reasonably justified. A technician could spend much longer rebuilding a timer for an old dishwasher and still do it at a price that made sense for that customer, whereas the last time I remember that being done was when my dad did it for his own dishwasher just to see if it would work!
The longevity of some of the older appliances was helped by service being cheaper and parts being easier to service due to economic factors beyond our direct control.
Thrifty Ethic
There is another big factor that contributed to the older machines being as legendary as they were, and that is the people that owned them. This is somewhat anecdotal, but if you’ve talked to someone who was a child during the Great Depression or was raised by someone heavily influenced by times of scarcity, there is usually going to be an ethic of “waste not, want not” burned into them. This carried over into how they cared for their possessions. Most modern washers are not cared for the way a washer bought in the 70s may have been. Although, not many modern washers are made to be maintained in that way, but I believe the point still stands: The older machines we see surviving so long may not have lasted so long if they had not been cared for or maintained so well.
Longer Lasting
So is it an illusion? Did the older appliances actually last longer or are there too many factors mixed in with a “Survivor Bias” to really tell? There are current studies on average lifespans of modern appliances but those numbers are very hard to find for previous decades. A 2007 report from the National Association of Home Builders summarizes it like this, “The life expectancy of a typical appliance depends to a great extent on the use it receives. Moreover, appliances are often replaced long before they are worn out because changes in styling, technology and consumer preferences make newer products more desirable. Of the major appliances in a home, gas ranges have the longest life expectancy: 15 years. Dryers and refrigerators last about 13 years. Some of the appliances with the shortest lifespan are: compactors (6 years), dishwashers (9 years) and microwave ovens (9 years).”
Another report published in 2000 lines up roughly with these numbers and adds that washers tend to last an average of 12 years. I have not been able to find any such reports from decades past however. When reading about appliance expected lifespans, again and again it is presented as a given, then anecdotal evidence is offered. When such anecdotes are plentiful, I don’t think we need to seriously doubt their claims that the older appliances lasted longer. Most of us do have a story that attests to that, but what we don’t know is how many appliances from yesteryear did not make it. Without that, it is hard to know just how large a factor the survivor bias is and almost impossible to make a direct comparison. We do know the trend is downwards though, as demonstrated in a recent survey by Bergur Thormundsson in 2022 which shows the average life expectancy of appliances between 2011 and 2022 either staying the same or declining. I will continue to update if I am able to find more, or if you do, please reach out on the contact page.
Conclusion
In the end, like a lot of things, appliances may very well have been better in the past, but we’re living in the here and now and if we’re going to make the best of what we’ve got, at least there are some things to be thankful for. Appliances have never been more affordable and able to increase the quality of life of more people. As for me, I will keep on honing my craft to make sure I can keep the ones running that I am invited to fix. I appreciate every opportunity to keep these labour-saving devices humming safely.
I hope you’ve found the information compiled here useful, please share the link if you have!
Sources
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/home-appliances-good-old-days-now-theyre-cheaper-better-energy-efficient-ever/
https://www.dovetailinc.org/upload/tmp/1579548998.pdf
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/home-appliances-good-old-days-now-theyre-cheaper-better-energy-efficient-ever/
https://applianceassistant.com/ServiceManuals/16010373_maytag_dependable_care_washer_covering_1994-1997_models.pdf
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Maytag-5-3-cu-ft-Smart-Capable-White-Top-Load-Washing-Machine-with-Extra-Power-Button-ENERGY-STAR-MVW7232HW/312273355
https://www.thestar.com/life/advice/2018/12/11/appliances-dont-last-as-long-as-they-used-to-ellen-roseman.html
https://www.hcmuddox.com/sites/default/files/library/nahb20study20of20life20expectancy20of20home20components.pdf
https://www.mrappliance.com/expert-tips/appliance-life-guide/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/220020/average-life-expectancy-of-major-household-appliances/
