Why do major appliances always break on the weekend??

Rule3

Rule3

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Is there some bad omen with major appliances? Seems they tend to break on weekends, holidays. Kinda like cars do on Monday morning before work.

Then if you are lucky to find someone it is triple time to get it fixed!

A capacitor went out on our central air. If I had the part it would take 5 minutes to fix.(yes, I knew what it was)

The temp in the house went from 77 to 83 in about a hour.

We found a guy, he came over took 5 minutes, $300.00 and he was gone. Part was $80. GE made in Mexico.

Oh well, less painful than when the Refridge/Freezer went out and waited 4 days for a micro chip to fix that!

Gonna go buy a portable room AC at Lowes!:)
 
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Good question.

Another question is why do high priced units often fail more than cheaper ones?

I put a builders grade Goodman heat & air unit in my home nearly 20 years ago. Has always run like charm. A good friend has gone through three units in about the same time. Original (don't know), Rheem that was nothing but trouble so he replaced it, and now a Carrier only two years old that's already failed twice. :rolleyes:

The new stuff is supposed to be so much more efficient but I have my doubts. That said, I do like my LED lightbulbs. :D
 
The newer stuff is so high tech. expensive and JUNK! Plus to get it fixed there are so many parts from China, Mexico whatever, The parts places can no possibly keep them all in stock so they need to order it from a warehouse. Of Course the wrong part is sent.

At least the guy I called for the AC was nice, we diagnosed the problem over the phone. Yes, I could hear
the capacitor "humming" took the side panel off and gave him the part number, he did not want to charge me to come 40 miles if he did not have the part. He did!

Our Fridge lasted probably 20 years (no issues) we replaced it with top of the line new one (all electronic crapola) it has died 3 times within the first 2 years!

It is like a new car, need a computer to read the error codes!:mad:
 
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Oh yeah... the wife decided on a new washer/dryer a couple years ago. You know the kind... touchpad with 100 flashing wash selections to choose from. Like that's going to somehow swish water and soap around so much better, right? :rolleyes:

Just a few weeks after purchase the washer sounded like a hammer was in the drum during spin cycle. Of course I had paid a couple hundred more dollars for the extended warranty... :rolleyes: Apparently, the main bolt thingy was loose and fell off the thing-a-ma-gig or some other high-tech nonsense. Sigh...
 
Gah! What about the new "hi tech" front loading water saver washing machines? Bought a Maytag, the wiring burned up due to cheap aluminum connectors. Fixed that myself. There is no screen ahead of the pump, so if you miss a dime in your pockets. Bam, 100 dollar pump on the way...It got so bad I bought a second one used to have a source of parts on hand...And it does not wash clothes worth a darn,and it smells bad to boot. Old school one next time.
 
The KISS system works well with appliances. Every feature is one more thing to go wrong. I don't need a water dispenser in the fridge. The fridge is a short walk from the sink. I don't need computerized controls. Knobs, dials, analog work well enough. I worked on a new fridge that had stopped defrosting, just about the time the warrantee ended. Old fridges had timer switches. 4 wires, 2 screws, $10 part, 10 minute repair. New timer is part of the $300 control board, and another trip to install it.
My new fridge looks just like the old one that was still running at 20 years. Salesman said the new run runs more economically than the old, but won't last as long. Thats just the way they build them now.
 
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Had a wild one with our electric range awhile back. There was a pot cooking on low on the burner and all of a sudden we heard a very loud bang. I walked into the kitchen and the whole burner area was on fire. Got that taken care of, pulled the stainless pot off and discovered the range had blown a hole clear through the bottom of the pot. Furthermore it had blown a big hole clear though the burner element as well. I end up having to remove the controls where that burner had shorted causing the problem,repairing the controls and re-wiring that burner and replacing everything.So far so good. I had never heard of this happening before.
Jim
 
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ChattanoogaPhil said:
Oh yeah... the wife decided on a new washer/dryer a couple years ago. You know the kind... touchpad with 100 flashing wash selections to choose from. Like that's going to somehow swish water and soap around so much better, right? :rolleyes:

Just a few weeks after purchase the washer sounded like a hammer was in the drum during spin cycle. Of course I had paid a couple hundred more dollars for the extended warranty... :rolleyes: Apparently, the main bolt thingy was loose and fell off the thing-a-ma-gig or some other high-tech nonsense. Sigh...
Click to expand...

You have to take your firearms out of the washer before the spin cycle.You're old enough to know better. :D
 
It is a practical joke done by nerd boy electrical and mechanical engineers. They designed things to go out at the most inconvenient time. It is to get even for all the teasing they took in school.

The joke was started by George Andrew Darby about 100 years ago. He is the guy that designed the smoke detector. He designed them with a timer so the batteries only die in the wee morning hours. Chirp chirp chirp at 3 or 4 am was inspired.

It carried over to computer systems. Bill Gates was teased big time so he got even by coming up with an operating systems that know when you are in hurry for output and that is why you get that blue screen of death or the computer gets real slow just when you need it to be fast. Steve Jobs was a cool kid and was rarely teased or bullied and that is why Apple Computers tend to run and run.

My favorite was the guy that came up with the check engine light. It really doesn't do anything; it just comes on at random to make your significant other panic the car will blow up. If you ignore it you'll hear about it. Heaven help you if anything actual breaks down. You'll hear about that forever. Yeah he came up with it just because some one else always got the girl.

Moral of this story is never mess with an engineer or nerd.

How do I know, my brother is an engineer. But heck by profession I use to be an account. We got teased and bullied too...guess what we did to get even...we came up with the tax code.
 
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I'm up in northern Wisconsin right now. When I got here, I got my old Tahoe out and drove it around. It was stored on a battery tender, and it fired right up. Saturday the AC quit working. I replaced the compressor about 2years ago. Then the fuel pump decided to pack it in (replaced 1.5 years ago). So tomorrow I need to get it towed in. At least it broke down at home and not on the road somewhere.
 
Same reason the trans on your car goes on the fritz at 36,020 miles on a 36,000 mile warranty. :rolleyes:
 
They beak for the same reason cars / trucks always break during a monsoon or in the winter. The God of Mechanical Failures must be fed. :D
 
Just an update

We slept in cool, no humidity comfort last night.:D

Priceless:cool:

Just looked the part up. Depending on where I bought one it is around $20.00+/-

But would have to wait for delivery and that would bring up all the rants on shipping and how all the delivery methods are incompetent.;):D
 
Funny you mention this. On Saturday I helped a friend replace his water heater and on Sunday he helped me replace the shower faucet

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 
ChattanoogaPhil said:
Good question.

Another question is why do high priced units often fail more than cheaper ones?

I put a builders grade Goodman heat & air unit in my home nearly 20 years ago. Has always run like charm. A good friend has gone through three units in about the same time. Original (don't know), Rheem that was nothing but trouble so he replaced it, and now a Carrier only two years old that's already failed twice. :rolleyes:

The new stuff is supposed to be so much more efficient but I have my doubts. That said, I do like my LED lightbulbs. :D
Click to expand...

I hear you. We bought a no name dehumidifier over 30 years ago and it is still running everyday. Last year we bought a new fangled dehumidifier to help it out and it died 10 months later. Still in the garage as the trash people won't touch it due to EPA regs.
 
That's is one of the reasons I like the Cleveland area, No matter what You need somebody has it.
I needed a igniter for a Blue Star Oven and the salesman said it would take a week to get in so I called around those little Mom and Pop parts stores and lo and behold One had just what I needed and for a little less than the Store wanted.It took five minutes to install and the Oven has been trouble free ever since.
 
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