Judith Capen's rattletrap dishwasher recently went into death throes. Two repairmen fiddled with it, then stomped off, saying she could buy a new one for less than it would cost to fix the 18-year-old machine.
But Capen, an architect and self-described "defective consumer," didn't want to replace it. She wanted it fixed. Particularly after she and her husband went off to eye a $1,500 dishwasher for which he had been lusting--whisper quiet, stainless steel inside and out, and bottom line "very cool looking"--and the sales clerk said it wouldn't last any longer than the mid-priced model dripping in their Capitol Hill kitchen.
Capen went home and stuck an aluminum baking pan under the leak until she could figure out a better solution. "That's how our frost-free refrigerator works too. Fifteen cents versus $1,500."
Then she grumbled, "I grew up when people expected to be buried with their appliances."
Search the Internet for consumer complaints about appliances and it appears there is scarcely a stove, refrigerator or dishwasher that won't break down, blow up, or flood your new parquet floors, usually in the midst of some major family event. The catalogue of consumer wrath at www.consumeraffairs.com , for example, will make you contemplate resurrecting the ice box and cooking joints of mutton on a spit in the fireplace.
Were kitchen appliances really more reliable in the old days?
"I think they generally break down less than they did," said John Lefever, president of Alco Appliance in Beltsville. "If you made a graph of the last 50 years--overall they're more reliable. Much like automobiles, they last longer."
It seems that memories of trusty appliances are tinged with the same nostalgia that colors so much else about the halcyon 1950s. "I go to dinner parties and people, particularly those in their sixties, say they never saw an appliance guy all the time they were growing up," he said. "Of course they broke down. People used to fix things themselves or there was a guy they called in the neighborhood."
And don't forget that Mama herself was at home, waxing the linoleum, so repairs always seemed painless and invisible.
One thing is true about the 1950s: At least when it came to appliances, things really were simpler. There were no icemakers, computers or links to the Internet that let you defrost tonight's roast from your office. All of these gadgets and gizmos have a tendency to . . . break. But you knew that, didn't you?
"A range can last a few years or 40 years," said Lefever, who has been repairing ranges for more than 30, plus another 10 if you include teenage tinkering. "It depends on the complexity of it. And some are just better than others. . . . But price has little to do with quality and longevity. The dual-fuel Jenn-Air is a more troublesome range than a GE gas. The pricier you get, the more features, and the more features, the more there is to break."
"Some appliances are so simple they're hard to mess up," said Hal Woodyard, chief inspector at Archer Inspections Inc., a local home inspection firm. "When I look at housing I see a lot of low-end stuff. A $250 gas stove will last a long time. The more complicated you make something, the more opportunity there is for it to break."
