Sad but not unexpected news about GE

Grandmother had a fridge from the '40s to the day she died in the '90s. It likely used twice as much electricity as a modern fridge.

 

How much energy and resources are used to fabricate a new fridge

 

We've got high end Samsung or Samsung made almost everything and they work excellently. The reality is that most appliances nowadays are built by just a few companies and then they get rebranded and sold as many other brands. Differences are the logo of course and then generally the handles. They play on the fact that most people want a uniform look in appliances in the kitchen and price accordingly. You pay extra just because you want a handle with that exact curve that matches that oven and fridge and dishwasher.

The Koreans know how to build an appliance. We have LG and Samsung fridges and they work perfectly. They suffer from "German car syndrome" where they are much more complicated than their Whirlpool equivalent. So when they fail, it will be replacing entire components. But this doesn't matter because even the cheaply built ones are repaired the same way. If you are extremely handy you could repair the board in a Whirlpool with some parts but the service tech won't do that. So what's the difference?

The Samsung and LG's are built to last so when the time comes for repair it will be many many years later. I have had to recently fix a relative's KitchenAid fridge. Cost over $12K new in 2002, one of the top of the line ones where they put the custom cabinetry panels on it to blend into the rest of the kitchen. When I took the board apart, the power supply that drives the logic for the compressor and everything is a crappy little chip made for power adapters, not an appliance to be on 24/7/365. About 50cents in single quantities. The power IC failed, the optocoupler failed, and 1 of the 6 relays failed along with all the electrolytic caps on the board. With $50 worth of stuff, all the relays, all the caps, and most of the power circuitry was replaced with new parts and it worked again. But these terrible components shouldn't be in a fridge. Contrasting with when I took apart my similar era Samsung fridge to try and hack the LCD screen (yes an LCD screen in a fridge from 2002) everything was surface mount. Didn't see a TH electrolytic in sight for all those components. Potting compound was used, the board was a multilayer PCB with gold plating not the single layer tin board with wire jumps the Whirlpool uses. It's like they are playing completely different games.

 

My guess is a whole lot less than the energy cost of running it.
Per unit built, one mass production scales, the energy to build something is not all that much.
A fridge from 1990 uses three times the energy as an energy star fridge sold in 2009.
How much is that old refrigerator in the garage costing me? – Golden Valley Electric Association

 

Don't know, but likely low enough that it isn't worth keeping the old fridge running as a back up in the garage.
As for vintage fridges, getting replacement refrigerant will be an issue, if you really want to keep one running.

 

if you google lg and samsung appliance reviews, all you see are repair horror stories. waiting days and weeks for a part, huge repair costs and terrible reliability.
i've asked several repair guys, and they say they see as much repair as any other make.
i have not experienced one personally, but this has kept us from buying one.

 

as an aside to this thread, ge is down to 18.

 

It is a good time to buy GE. This threads focus on appliances and RCA tells me too many don’t understand the scale and scope of what they do. There has been a lot of money going to shareholders over the years but they are still the dominant industrial giant they always have been. Started by Edison and the only original Dow Jones company out of 12.

 

I don't know if that's true anymore. They were a dominant company, then under the tyrant CEO of the past gobbled up the best of everything they could to become a modern behemoth that worked well for them. But that has been reversing, basically undoing all the growth from the past. They are obviously still a major player in everything, but less so than before.

 

I'm sure they'll be plenty to fill his pockets when he leaves.

 

i guess they still have jet engines and medical equipment.

 

just read on cnn, they are selling their railroad division, and the cut dividends 50%. the ceo doesn't expect recovery until after 2018.

 

GE used to be one of the more desirable companies where graduate engineers from my school hoped to get a job.

 

hmm, immelt stepped down immediately with the stock plunge, and flannery has taken over. the plot thickens...

 

loos like the stock peaked at 60 bucks when welsh stepped down in 2000, and has had a rocky ride under immelt, finishing around 20 bucks when he cashed in his chips.

 

That's 'built-in obsolescence' and it is the modern way of getting you to buy their products more frequently,
Kerching$$$$✓

 

I just looked looked more recently. At least currently for my location you may find better prices elsewhere depending on what you are shopping for.

 

the problem with buying appliances is the shopping time, delivery and removal. you want to do it as infrequently as possible, but those days are gone.

 

True. They cover the delivery and charge a small fee for removal IIRC. If you have access to a pickup truck & landfill area you can sometimes DIY install & removal.
We have an upright freezer that has run reliably for over 20 years and is still going strong. Those days are long gone now. I have lost count of the number of refrigerators we have bought during that time.

 

i can't even imagine trying to move a refrigerator, those days are long gone! i'm lucky to be able to roll it out to vacuum the dust bunnies.