My 2 year old GE fridge recently stopped working. It made a clicking noise every couple of minutes,
which I assume is the compressor trying to start up, but it never did. I found some helpful YouTube
videos diagnosing the problem and I also went through all of your suggestions on the YouTube
community page. I replaced the start relay and capacitor, but I couldn’t get the fridge
up and running again. A new compressor costs over $500 and hiring a technician to replace
it costs a couple hundred more. As much as I was trying to avoid it, I bought a new Samsung
fridge from Costco to replace my GE fridge. It comes with a 10 year warranty on the compressor,
which I hope I won’t have to replace. This frustrating and disappointing experience
is the result of “planned obsolescence”. This is a business strategy in which
items are designed to be obsolete, unfashionable, unusable, or defective in a short period of time.
This results in us throwing away things that are basically new,
purchasing replacements at a higher price point with new features. It also results in
higher profit margins for manufacturers and an economy driven by rabid consumerism.
Planned obsolescence is widely discussed in terms of electronics and fast fashion,
but it is also present in the homes we live in and the building construction industry as a whole.
In this video, we’re going to discuss different types of planned obsolescence that are causing
our homes and buildings to fail. The first is contrived durability.
Manufacturers purposely reduce the lifetime of a product so that it deteriorates quickly,
usually right after the warranty ends. They use inferior materials in essential parts like cheap
plastic and soft screws instead of metal. This can cause excessive wear and tear. My GE fridge
is an example of contrived durability. I had a 1 year warranty on it and it died in 2 years.
In the early 1900s, the Phoebus cartel lowered the life expectancy
of incandescent bulbs from 2,500 hours to 1,000 hours. They even fined manufacturers
for bulbs that lasted more than 1,000 hours. Nowadays, we’re being encouraged to switch
from incandescents to LEDs which claim to last 30 years. From personal experience,
this is a lie. These LEDs that I bought off Amazon don’t last for more than 4 months.
At a larger scale, homes are designed to meet the minimum Building Code requirements. Builders use
nails to secure walls to roof rafters instead of more durable metal straps. They also use nails
to anchor walls to a foundation rather than more expensive bolts. Cardboard thermo ply sheathing
has replaced OSB or plywood. All these decisions are allowed by code, but they can collectively
reduce the lifetime of a building. Next is prevention of repairs. Unibody designs
or soldered parts prevent owners from repairing products. Replacement parts are also expensive and
difficult to find. This has turned traditionally durable goods into single-use, disposable items.
Apple uses tamper resistant Pentalobe screws on their laptops and iphones, which is seen as an
attempt to lock owners out of their devices. Panasonic’s infrared toaster oven can bake
food 40 times faster than normal. However, the on/off switch is soldered to the circuit board.
When it stops working you have 3 choices: buy an expensive new circuit board, spend hours
removing this tiny plastic part or throw it away. Frontloading washing machines have a drum bearing
that is prone to wear and tear. Repair costs are higher than the value of the
appliance, so customers just purchase a new one. Finally, spray foam. When applied correctly,
it can create an air-tight building that helps reduce HVAC costs. However,
electrical wiring and plumbing is embedded in the insulation, which will make home
repairs and remodels a nightmare. We should be separating the two to future-proof homes.
Systemic strategy deliberately ensures that the current version of a product will become outdated
and incompatible with newer versions. This is evident when charging ports are
changed on laptops and TVs. You have to spend money on dongles and adaptors
just to be able to use your old products. In January 2020, the EPA banned the production of
R-22 refrigerant or freon, which was widely used in air conditioners. This is a good thing for the
environment, since freon can destroy our ozone layer. But the ban has made repairs ridiculously
expensive so homeowners have to throw away old condensers and buy inferior new ones.
Another example of systemic strategy is changing floor designs. The laminate
flooring in my current home is just 5 years old but has started chipping. Since I can’t
find this particular pattern anywhere, I have to replace the flooring in my entire home.
Programming or design decisions can also lower the life expectancy of materials.
In many cities, it is illegal to shut off water supply at the curb without permission from the
utility company.But not every house has a valve inside. The freeze in Texas earlier this year
flooded many homes and apartments because they were not able to shut off their water supply.
Tiles are laid directly on concrete floors that move,
without a cleavage membrane like compressed sand or a Schluter
mat that can absorb small movements. This leads to cracked and sometimes, vicious popped tiles.
Foundation repair is a HUGE business in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Homes have either had foundation
repairs or will need it in the future. This is because soils here have a high clay content;
they swell and shrink throughout the year. Despite knowing this, most homes have a slab-on-grade
foundation instead of a pier and beam one. What’s worse is that contractors are now moving
to post-tensioned slabs, which will be far more expensive to fix in the future.
I’ll make a separate video explaining this further.
Legal intervention is another planned obsolescence strategy. I made a video
a while back on all-electric homes. In the 1960s, coal burning furnaces were banned.
New homes that only used electricity were given a “Gold Medallion”. Ironically, these medallion
homes were powered by coal burning power plants, so they were not “clean” in any way.
During my recent visit to Procter in Canada, I was told that wood burning fireplaces are now banned.
During blackouts in winter, their new electric fireplaces don’t work so they have
no way to keep their homes warm or even cook. Perceived obsolescence is our fault. We are guilty
of buying into marketing campaigns and changing trends. We are guilty of becoming shopping addicts
and indulging in retail therapy. I’d be lying if I said that my new Samsung fridge isn’t sexy af,
I guess that’s a sign I’m getting old. We recently bought a 1970s home that has a 40
year old HotPoint stove top and GE microwave that still work. Sure, they’re not trendy, but they’re
functional. There is nothing I can buy to replace them that will work for the next 40 years.
Countertops trend from ceramic tiles, to laminate, to granite to solid surface to engineered stone
like quartz. Fridge styles change yearly too, from top freezer to bottom freezer to side by
side to french door. We’re told that color trends change yearly, and that wallpaper is
coming back in style. Maybe I should just leave this loud blue wallpaper in place.
Finally, layers of change. This is a very important part of planned obsolescence in
the construction industry. Site remains forever barring any natural disasters,
structure lasts 50-100 years, skin lasts 20-50 years, services 10-30 years, space plan 5-10
years and stuff, furniture lasts 1-5 years. Homes are designed such that a longer-lasting component
is dependent on a shorter lived one. For example, obsolete insulation can only be replaced by
removing long-lived facade or roof elements. Even though concrete slabs should last a 100 years,
they have to be broken up to get to plastic pipes for maintenance. We are intentionally lowering
the lifespan of long-lasting materials. Both manufacturers and consumers are to blame
for the current state of affairs. The dopamine and serotonin release from buying new gadgets is very
addictive. But that feeling is being weaponized by manufacturers through planned obsolescence.
Consumers are told that overflowing landfills and polluted oceans are our fault. When,
in fact, it’s corporations that are the problem. They waste energy and resources
designing disposable products that fail and then turn around and call themselves “green”.
We need to demystify homes and educate homeowners. I believe that every home
should come with an instruction manual detailing where things are located and how to identify them.
Public education on planned obsolescence and the right to repair will help people
focus on the bones and performance of homes. This shift will finally force
developers and contractors to build better. Leave me a comment below with any other examples
of planned obsolescence in architecture, design and construction. How do you think we can break
this destructive cycle? I’ll link my Patreon page in the description. If you can support me,
I’d really appreciate it. A big thank you to everyone already supporting me. Don’t
forget to hit the like button and subscribe to my channel. Thanks for watching. See ya.