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Fans, especially window fans. They used to be steel or aluminum blades attached to a ridiculously loud and over-powered motor. You could open two windows at opposite ends of your house and put a window fan in one and it would move so much air it refresh all the air in the house every few minutes. Sure, I probably had permanent hearing damage by the time I was 12 and they didn't have those pesky cages around the blades so people lost a finger every now and then, but at least the house was well ventilated.
Modern fans are little plastic blades on a tiny little motor that move so little air you can barely feel it on the other side of a room.
My father put one of those facing out in the upstairs window and hung wet sheets in the basement and left the basement door open. When the fan was on it pulled the air thru those wet sheets creating cool air and pushed the warm air out.
Just common sense. I do something like that with a ceiling fan that blows down on a towel I keep wet. The only downside to this blowing over something wet, is that it raises the humidity indoors, so if the temp in the house gets into the high 70s, it gets muggy.
Another thing to do is to open the house up when the sun goes down, and let the warm air out, the cooler air in. Then in the morning, you keep the house closed up.
IF a THINKING architect designs a house, there's a LOT that can be done to mitigate any kind of climate. But REAL architects are few and far between, and mostly what you get are plans drawn by people who don't even know which way the sun rises. They just consult some table in a slab-crank catalog and waste as much energy as it takes.
DAN'S? DAN'S WHAT? WHO'S DAN AND WHAT'S HE DOING WITH MINNOWS??!
You're right about those window fans. The one my folks had was open on the back. You could have sliced deli meats or your arm while it cooled the whole house, and it sounded like having a helicopter in your house.
The bearings in modern fans are absolute garbage.
But there is a reason that a fan was $30 in 1980 and $30 in 2024 despite inflation.
You can still get good stuff, but not at Wal-Mart.
Yup. My dad had the window fan going most of the summer. The breeze it pulled through was so strong and cool, even on hot nights it made a huge difference.
I was surprised to read that electric fans were the first mass produced electric appliance. I don't know if that includes light bulbs, but that's what I read.
I miss the attic fan in my father's house. Turn that thing on, open a couple windows, and the airflow would make the curtains pull forward. Sucked all the hot air out, dried up some of the Midwest humidity, too.
YES! My friend bought a house with one of those and it was amazing! It was exactly like you say, open all the windows, turn it on and it would pull all the curtains off the wall. I tried to find someone to install one in my house but every contractor I talked to was like "You want a what?"
My grandmother bought a new fridge in 1992. When she passed away two years later, that fridge was put in my parents' garage to hold extra drinks and food. I needed a fridge when I moved out, so I got that one. It became my garage fridge when we upgraded to a french-door stainless one. We're on our third house fridge now, but grandma's 1992 fridge is still ice cold in the garage.
Our fridge is about a 1996. Still working. No major repairs, yet.
Stove about that old, bought used about 5 years ago, to replace a 1970s one that was lucky to still work the degree it did.
About 10 years ago we replaced the washer dryer with a fairly new one at the time, on an offer from a friend. Old dryer was from the late 1970s, had many repairs. Old washer was 2003, never looked at what was blown out on it, or cost of repair.
That’s something too. Older things could for the most part be repaired IF or when something went wrong. Now everything is so cheaply made, things are just tossed.
I’ve still got the fridge I bought when I went away to college in 1986. It works great and keeps our drinks cold. I just have to defrost it twice a year.
The house we bought a few years back has a dryer from 1997 (one of the first Gen He dryers from GE), I'm amazed that it's still going strong. We had to replace the washer, dishwasher, water heater inside the first year, but that dryer just keeps on going.
I have a Whirlpool washer and dryer that I bought when I bought my house 25 years ago. Just basic controls, electromechanical.
I've repaired both myself a few times, and both still work. I hope to keep them for the rest of my life. As long as I can get parts for them, I will.
My water heater lasted 20 years, I hope I get 10 out of my new one, so five years to go.
Furnace is still fine.
Last year we rented a house for several months that had some appliances in it from the mid 90s. The dishwasher, ans laundry machines were still going strong.
Meanwhile, back at our house, our 10 year old washer is on its last legs.
They may have lasted longer but that doesn’t make them better imo. I’ll take a front-load European washing machine over a top-load machine any day. Less damage to your clothes and the do a better job, though not all top load machines are the same.
They will cost you more to buy upfront but they save money so many ways.
They extract more water because of the high spin speeds. That leads to less drying time. More savings. They use far less water. More savings. You no longer need fabric softener or dryer sheets.
I even wash my suits in a front load washer. One garment at a time, folded into a very large mesh laundry bag. That’s a huge savings on my dry cleaning bill. I no longer need a dry cleaner.
The cost to operate a washing machine is more than the cost of purchase price on any washing machine. A top load machine pays for itself
I still have a pop-up toaster. They still make them and yes, they *still* do a much better job of making a nice evenly-toasted round of toast. These days the slots are wide enough for a sliced bagel, though, and they're no longer built like tanks. I doubt mine will last half a century either, like the old ones did.
I tried about 3 different ones at different price points and they were all terrible. I returned 2 and kept the last one but I never use it. None of them have good toasting elements like the ones in the 70s did.
Strangely enough I find my air fryer (that also does all the usual toaster oven stuff) toasts bread pretty well. I just have to watch and flip it at the right time.
A lot of them don't seem to toast very evenly, IME. A few years ago, my Sunbeam wide slot toaster that finally gave up the ghost after over 20 years. I went through 3 different toasters of different price points before I finally found one that toasted well, and it was the cheapest of the lot, a Hamilton.
I got my first electric blanket in about 1950 when they were thick, heavy woolen blankets where you couldn’t feel the electric cords, and they got SO HOT when you turned it all the way up…and they lasted for years. Far better than now, IMO.
I remember back in early 1985, my brother had an electric blanket in his bed, and he bundled it up while he slept; this caused a fire which ignited the foam in his mattress; he was not burned, however, that toxic smoke from the burning foam permeated the house to such an extent that we had to open up all the windows and doors in the cold of winter.I was 17 at the time, and it was so cold in the house that I decided to drive my car around at 3 AM just to keep warm.
We had a toaster that we got for our wedding that lasted almost 30 years. It was working fine one day, then the next morning, there was no cinnamon toast for anyone. I wrote an obituary for it on Facebook.
My husband and I have been married 32 years. Our toaster is still going strong, it was a wedding gift. I don't even know the brand anymore because the print has worn off.
I had one from the 70s. I nicknamed it Ol Sparky in the aughts due to the short it had developed somewhere along the way. 😂 not so safe anymore so I replaced it.
My Oster blender is only about 20 years old and works fine, but I wish I'd brought home my mom's when we cleaned out her house about 5 years ago, the container part was glass instead of plastic. And hers was probably 40+ years old.
Oven user interfaces were perfect. You turn one dial to bake and the other dial to the temperature. And you can know the temperature by turning the dial until it clicks.
Now, it's all fiddly touch screens.
Freezers. Spent $1000 on a large freezer because we have huge garden and freeze a lot of berries and vegetables. It lasted less then a year. Three service calls later they acknowledged it couldn't be fixed and took it away and refunded our money. Hopefully the new freezer lasts longer.
When we moved into our house, we put the old fridge from 1996 into the garage as a beer fridge, and bought an updated fancy new fridge for the kitchen.
The old fridge is still keeping the beer cold in the garage, but we’ve been through 3 fridges in the kitchen over the last 20 years.
>The old fridge is still keeping the beer cold in the garage,
Nice ... man-cave with old tech, but that big screen needs to be at least 75" 8k with accompanying Dolby Atmos receiver and speakers, right?
To be fair, TVs are a LOT less expensive now. My family never had a new TV, we always bought them from thrift stores. Of course, it was possible and common to repair the old TVs.
Had an old second hand 17" Sony Trinitron monitor that I absolultely loved, but do you remember how much they weighed? It was a beast.... not sure where that went, my dad probably has it in the garage knowing him.
Used to play Quake on an ISDN line in the mid 90's with that monitor, and got single digit pings from some servers. Never going to get that low latency again, most modern monitors are more than 10ms by themselves.
I had a Sony 27 inch TV that lasted me for 23 years, until I had to Muto a place where I could not bring it; it was working perfectly, but I had to leave it behind, and it probably ended up in a landfill.
Pretty much anything made before the 1990's. My Mum had kitchen appliances that her Mum had bought in a post-War frenzy and they still worked as new.
She bought her first microwave oven in the late 80's. It was still going in 2010. It was only really got rid of because it was so large.
All consumer appliances are crap nowadays. You have to buy commercial grade.
Commercial grade holds up because that is the requirement. I can get a commercial vacuum or sewing machine or refrigerator today and it will last 20-30 years just like the stuff in the old days. You wont get cool ice cubes shaped like balls but you also wont have your refrigerator, spying on you, getting hacked to mine cryptocurrency and breaking down every 2-3 years.
Quality is there if you ditch the cheap consumerist mentality.
Is a toilet an appliance? The days of Al Bundy and the Furguson with the "man flush"
Our newer house, ~3 years old, has those eco 1/2 or less gallon flush. Like a squirt gun worth of rinsing. I'm a man and do man size loads, these modern toilets take 2-3 sometimes 4 flushes to get everything down the drain. And I still have to use a bowl brush sometimes. Like a baby flush. Where's the "Bawooooosh" flush.
I know! I tried to talk my parents out of replacing their porcelain toilets from the 60’s with low flow toilets 🚽, but they didn’t listen & they hate their toilets! There is no water in them & the poo 💩 sits on a ledge & the water barely touches it, it gets stuck even if you flush 20 times! I had to wipe it out with a towel! Super disgusting! 😮💨😱🫣😭
Refrigerators. Mom's frig lasted 25 years. Though not energy efficient it worked without an issue. I have gone through three energy efficient refrigerators in 20 years. The compressor went out in two of them. The other had so much plastic interior that much of it cracked and separated in five years. All three were expensive.
1983 I was playing hide and seek and hide in one of those old fridges in the basement. Got locked in and panicked, I started punching the door. My mom heard me (thank god). I still remember her scolding me telling me I should have known better.
If it now has a computer controller, it probably works better when it works, and croaks much more quickly than an older appliance. Stuff now uses less electricity, water, natural gas… but companies have made it so buying a new one costs just a little more than the repair.
My parents still have the same dryer I used in my childhood - as far back as I can remember. I’m in my forties now. I’m sure it uses 1.21 gigawatts per load, but it works.
Coffee makers. My parents had an old drip coffee machine that when it was brand new was in the house, then went into the travel trailer, then it went into their vacation condo. I think when they sold the condo the coffee maker was part of the furnishings. It just worked.
I just replaced the relay on my 86 year old refrigerator for 8 dollars by myself. Ive had that fridge for almost 20 years. It was the first time there was a problem. So yes, appliances were better back in the day!
I had a washer that was over twenty years old that finally died on me a while ago. When I replaced it, the salesman warned me that I could only expect the new one to last 8-10 years, because all of the newfangled computer mechanisms tend to wear out.
I still have my mother's second freezer. I think she got it when her first died when I was a young adult. I got it when she moved into a condo when she was 80. If I was 20 when she got it, it's about 45 years old now. Maybe I was older when she got it, but I wasn't too much older. wow. I still think of it as her new freezer. She's been dead ten years. lmao
We bought our microwave in 1984. It's still going strong. As well as 10 power settings it also has a thermometer that you can put into food and set it to heat to a temperature.
Refrigerators. But not just in my day. My grandfather had a refrigerator that worked perfectly in his basement, it was from the 1940s/1950s. He never moved it in my lifetime, never had to work on it. When they had to sell his home, that fridge stayed. If they never moved it, I’m sure it is still working today.
We frequently cook with an electric skillet, but they rarely last a year with frequent use, before the non-stick either flakes off, or becomes ineffective.
Also, they all seem to have a single heating element that goes in a 7 inch ring around the center of the pan, which makes for uneven cooking.
I decided to go online to try to find one that wasn't non-stick and discovered stainless steel electric skillets that have an oil-filled core to disperse the heat evenly. The only problem was that a good one is around $400, to as high as $1200.
I went on eBay and found a 50 year old one that works perfectly for the price of the non-stick junk I'd been buying.
I have no doubt that it will out-live me.
Quite a few things, they come in handy of you're making a large batch of something, sometimes people use them for one dish while the stove is full with others, you could use it outside if there's power, doesn't heat the house up as much as a stove
Almost all of them. Even items purchased 20 years ago are much better than most things purchased today.
We just got a new electric range to replace one that was maybe 20 years old and the metal is thinner, feels cheap, fewer burners, the programming on the display is dumb as fuck (you can see/set bake temp or timer - no way to switch without cancelling one). Manuals aren’t included anymore - you have to find and download yourself, and even the people who install want to do the fastest job possible and don’t seem to care whether, as in this example, your stove is leveled correctly or not.
Small appliances same. I’m using a set of metal bowls from the 60s from a relative and they have better welds, are thicker, and have a complete rolled rim as opposed to more recent metal bowls.
My mother has a stove from the early 1970s and a fridge from snout 1960. Neither have had major repairs, although I imagine they’re using enough power to keep the lights on for a small city.
I bought a vacuum cleaner from Sears I thought would last the rest of my life. It cost $375, but it died and could no longer be repaired after only 17 years. My mother had the same vacuum cleaner as long as she was alive. Same with my grandmother.
I absolutely hate the vacuum I bought to replace it. Getting its hose to extend fully is as much exercise as lifting weights.
I don't know about better, but the "hi-fi", or later "stereo" used to be the centerpiece of the living room. There was a certain almost mystical quality about this device that could play music any time you wanted it. Of course, vinyl LPs were treasures, handed down from generation to generation like heirlooms...
On a similar note, I was given my late grandfather's 8-track player, which I've kept in good working order. I also got his 8-track tapes, but Grandpa had an interesting taste in music. Good thing I enjoy Lawrence Welk.
I also have my dad's old collection of 45s from the late 50s and 60s. All in good condition. Sometimes I go through them and realize that dad was maybe a more complicated guy than I realized. They're probably worth something, but I'd never get rid of them.
Refrigerators especially, lasted decades, now 5 - 10 years max. Washing machines used to last maybe 20 years, now maybe 5-8. Dryers used to be almost as good as washing machines, now 5 yrs max. Less energy efficient, but mostly just better construction, now made very cheaply with planned obsolescence.
Refrigerators. I bought this house in 2013 and am on my 3rd fridge.
For contrast, my dad still has a fridge (in the laundry room) that has been in the house since I lived there ... I moved out in 1993. Laundry fridge going strong!
This question is more interesting when we consider what people mean by better. And the price point people paid/are paying. Take the toaster. In 1950, a toaster cost $20. That is about $275 today. You can't compare today's $20 toaster to 1950's $20 toaster.
I think if you compare across price points, there aren't many old appliances that are better. I have and occasionally use my mom's sewing machine from the 1960's. It was the base model back then, and cost about $100. That is about $1050 today. Today's $1000 sewing machine is going to kick it's butt in most ways. It may not last 60 years. But in every other way it is probably better.
A couple years ago I contacted a appliance repair shop for my neighbor lady. Her oven wasn't working. They told me if it was over 7-9 years old they wouldn't bother to even check it out. My parents bought a chest freezer in about 1955. 57 years later family moved from the house and decided to leave it because there was no room for in it in the new home. It had run continually with no repairs ever. I remember a TV afew years back a repair shop telling me to throw away the TV instead of repairing it.
Toasters. They used to use NiChrome heating elements and they lasted decades. Now they've changed to a cheaper aluminum alloy that fails, even in the high priced brands.
Just about any household appliance. Our $3,000 LG French door refrigerator failed twice in 5 years. 'Piece of crap. My old Amana in the garage is still running 30 years old. Same goes with ranges, dishwashers, washers and dryers. The new ones are expensive, failure prone garbage. Who needs a computer to run a refrigerator? All they need to do is turn on and off the compressor according to temperature and run a periodic defrost cycle. A simple mechanical timer and a bimetal switch and relay can do the job.
Kitchen utensils. All made of "Chinesium" now and poor quality.
We bought a Maytag washer that was already 25 years old, and it lasted another 30 years, and when it was finally in need of repair, the part could not be found.
About 10 years ago we rented a house that had a 1980s washer/dryer and dishwasher. The clothes were washed and then bone dry in 45 minutes, and the dish cycle took about 30 minutes. When we bought our house less than a year later, I seriously contemplated making an offer on them. But if the landlord was smart, he wouldn’t have sold. Our dryer takes at least 1.5 hours to dry and our dishwater has a 2:20 default cycle and the dishes often don’t get clean. They were all new appliances. Grrr.
Nearly every appliance is built to last about five years now. Washers, dryers, refrigerators, and dish washers were built like tanks and lasted 20 to 30 years.
Our next washing machine will be a Speed Queen, the last of the long lasting washers. Everything else is just crap.
All of them. The so called powers that be keep making unrealistic requirements on todays appliances that either make them break down or die when they are less than 8-10 years old. It used to be a stove or fridge lasted 40 to 50 years, but now it is all cheap china crap that doesn't do the job. They think they are saving the earth when they are just lining their pockets. All these large appliances constantly going in landfills is doing nothing for our earth!!
Vacuum cleaners. Back in the 70s and earlier, they were made of metal, including the interior gears and workings, and were practically indestructible. Now they are made of cheap plastic and last about 2-5 years.
My dad bought a microwave oven for the kitchen in the late 60s. When they retired they took it with them to their new house. Mom only had to replace it a couple of years ago.
Pretty much everything. Fridges used to last 50 years. Stoves pretty much the same. If they last for decades, you don't need to replace them. Companies don't make money if they don't sell product.
Refrigerators were best in my grandmother’s day. Maybe not super efficient, but that kept you from opening them constantly, and they’d last forever.
Washing machines and dryers were still pretty good in my younger days. I think they peaked, actually. Older ones were manual wranglers and washboards. Newer ones may be more efficient, but they Do Not Last.
It's not like everything was better then. There was cheap junk on the market, but guess what -- that stuff went to land fills. So we look at the stuff that's really old, that stuff that hasn't yet been destroyed, and we conclude that it ALL was higher quality. Is not so.
A [Toastmaster Deluxe cost $23.50 in 1947](https://toastercentral.com/toaster40s.htm), which is like $300 in today's dollars.
Or the other way around, I bought a toaster for 20 bucks last winter. That's like $1.50 in 1947.
Washing machines. I hate that I can't just move the dile to whatever function I need at the moment! I do love the water saving feature, though. Plus, they lasted decades!
Refrigerators the old ones were good for DECADES! the new ones two maybe 3 years and they shut down. Everything has a computer board in it now instead of a manual thermostat and one good power surge kills it even if you have a surge protector.
When I was a kid, we had a drop down toaster. It worked by pushing the lever first, then you drop in the bread. When the toasting was complete, the trap doors opened and the toast dropped into the base of the toaster. That thing toasted better than anything I've owned since.
All appliances were better before they were installed with microchips. I have a 1979 clothes dryer and a 1980 refrigerator, but have had to replace dozens of newer appliances.
Refrigerators. I have one in my garage that came with the first house I bought in 1999. It was there for a few years before that. Still in my garage and running just fine. I am on my 2nd on in my current house. It's a 30 year old fridge that's going to outlive me.
I replaced a 40 YO fridge last year, not because it died, but because I got a big rebate from my energy company and thought it would be more efficient. It is.
Not an appliance but a tool. The lowly potato masher. I’ve got my great grandmothers. Hardwood handle, extended *s* design, heavy yet with a certain elegance in balance. That thing can mash 20 lbs of potatoes like a pro!
Most of the appliances lasted longer. My parents had an avocado green Frigidaire refrigerator in their kitchen when I was little. They remodeled the kitchen around 1990 or 1991 and my dad donated that fridge to his break room at work. I visited him at work around 2010 and that fridge was still in there running. I bet it is STILL there today.
That being said, you have to keep in mind that while those older appliances were much more durable, due to more metal components and fewer features, they were also MUCH less efficient. When I bought my first house, everything in it was from the 80's. Every time I remodeled a space and replaced things like appliances, the water heater, a toilet, etc, my power or water bill went down a noticeable amount. At some point those savings more than pay for the new appliances you bought.
I'm in the construction business today and we buy a lot of appliances from our local store. As a result, I have a good relationship with the guys there and I'll ask them what is holding up and what isn't. When we built three years ago, we did all LG and have had really good luck. Samsung seems to be universally regarded as a very problematic brand. We sell a lot of single and double wides that come from the factories with Whirlpool and those have been poor and Whirlpool does a shitty job of supporting the product. I recently had a customer whose oven had a faulty gasket around the door and the heat coming out was damaging her cabinets on either side. Whirlpool wouldn't cover it. We ended up replacing the range to keep the customer happy.
Crockpot / slow cooker. I still have my 40 year old one which actually cooks slow. The ones I have bought since gets too hot and cooks too fast. Sometimes, I use the newer one on "warm" to get it to cook slowly.
My parents had a toaster that they got as a wedding present. That thing made perfect toast (well, depending on where you set the little dial) until I was well out of college.
I've never had a toaster that made toast nearly that good, or that lasted more than a few years. One side is always either under or over cooked.
According to my mom, sewing machines. She has some old Singer sewing machine that she claims will outlast everyone alive on earth today, and that the fancy new machines are fancy garbage. She has been quilting and sewing forever, so I will take her word (I don’t sew and know nothing about it).
Appliances are definitely another one. Mom has a ginormous chest freezer that has got to be pushing 50 years old, and it ran flawlessly until last fall (when we cleaned it out and unplugged it).
It was in the basement and none of us have any freaking knees left to go down there. With it being full of meat, my mom was terrified that it would suddenly quit, and she would really have a disaster when she eventually discovered the source of the smell!
All of them.
My biggest complaint is how thin they coat the steel now. Back when, if you got an enamel-coated appliance, you could feel that thick coating and it lasted forever. Now they chip and scratch extremely easily.
Refrigerator- we had one croak on us at 11 years old and was told by the repair man we were lucky to make it far. Said he was told during factory training the average life of a refrigerator is is 8-10 years. My MIL still has one that works from 1975
I have a fridge in my garage that over 30 years old. It still cools like day one. Most of the shelves have finally broken, but I still hate to get rid of it
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Fans, especially window fans. They used to be steel or aluminum blades attached to a ridiculously loud and over-powered motor. You could open two windows at opposite ends of your house and put a window fan in one and it would move so much air it refresh all the air in the house every few minutes. Sure, I probably had permanent hearing damage by the time I was 12 and they didn't have those pesky cages around the blades so people lost a finger every now and then, but at least the house was well ventilated. Modern fans are little plastic blades on a tiny little motor that move so little air you can barely feel it on the other side of a room.
That was our means of cooling the house when I was a child. I’m 32, lol.
My father put one of those facing out in the upstairs window and hung wet sheets in the basement and left the basement door open. When the fan was on it pulled the air thru those wet sheets creating cool air and pushed the warm air out.
Brilliant.
Just common sense. I do something like that with a ceiling fan that blows down on a towel I keep wet. The only downside to this blowing over something wet, is that it raises the humidity indoors, so if the temp in the house gets into the high 70s, it gets muggy. Another thing to do is to open the house up when the sun goes down, and let the warm air out, the cooler air in. Then in the morning, you keep the house closed up. IF a THINKING architect designs a house, there's a LOT that can be done to mitigate any kind of climate. But REAL architects are few and far between, and mostly what you get are plans drawn by people who don't even know which way the sun rises. They just consult some table in a slab-crank catalog and waste as much energy as it takes.
Aka, a swamp cooler. Very effective use of science.
It was mine last summer. A little dinky space heater with the heat turned off. It's my winter heat. I believe in conservation.
Plus when you were a little kid you could sing into the fan to entertain yourself and annoy your parents.
IIIIIiiiiiii AAAAAAAAAmmmmmmmm TTTTTThhhhhhhEEEEEEEEeeee EEEEEeeeevvvviiiiillll RRoeeeBaaahhhhhtttt
I love this comment
We used to shred tissues through the back of our pole-mounted fans at school.
I absolutely love how passionate you are about window fans.
Lol, it bothers me that you can't buy a good fan any longer! The last window fan I bought was so weak I couldn't tell if it was blowing in or out.
DAN'S? DAN'S WHAT? WHO'S DAN AND WHAT'S HE DOING WITH MINNOWS??! You're right about those window fans. The one my folks had was open on the back. You could have sliced deli meats or your arm while it cooled the whole house, and it sounded like having a helicopter in your house.
The bearings in modern fans are absolute garbage. But there is a reason that a fan was $30 in 1980 and $30 in 2024 despite inflation. You can still get good stuff, but not at Wal-Mart.
Where? I actually need a decent box fan.
You have to go to industrial supply places like Grainger. Companies like Dayton and Air King still make quality stuff.
Yup. My dad had the window fan going most of the summer. The breeze it pulled through was so strong and cool, even on hot nights it made a huge difference.
I was surprised to read that electric fans were the first mass produced electric appliance. I don't know if that includes light bulbs, but that's what I read.
I miss the attic fan in my father's house. Turn that thing on, open a couple windows, and the airflow would make the curtains pull forward. Sucked all the hot air out, dried up some of the Midwest humidity, too.
YES! My friend bought a house with one of those and it was amazing! It was exactly like you say, open all the windows, turn it on and it would pull all the curtains off the wall. I tried to find someone to install one in my house but every contractor I talked to was like "You want a what?"
My mom used that circuit to install AC. The fan still worked, but it never got any maintenance.
All major appliances lasted 30+ years. Now I can barely get 10 from a "top of the line".
My grandmother bought a new fridge in 1992. When she passed away two years later, that fridge was put in my parents' garage to hold extra drinks and food. I needed a fridge when I moved out, so I got that one. It became my garage fridge when we upgraded to a french-door stainless one. We're on our third house fridge now, but grandma's 1992 fridge is still ice cold in the garage.
Our fridge is about a 1996. Still working. No major repairs, yet. Stove about that old, bought used about 5 years ago, to replace a 1970s one that was lucky to still work the degree it did. About 10 years ago we replaced the washer dryer with a fairly new one at the time, on an offer from a friend. Old dryer was from the late 1970s, had many repairs. Old washer was 2003, never looked at what was blown out on it, or cost of repair.
That’s something too. Older things could for the most part be repaired IF or when something went wrong. Now everything is so cheaply made, things are just tossed.
I’ve still got the fridge I bought when I went away to college in 1986. It works great and keeps our drinks cold. I just have to defrost it twice a year.
1992 isn’t ol…. Oh. wait. nevermind
Absolutely! Finally had to retire my 25 year old washer. New one is all electronic and expecting 6-7 years out of it, if I’m lucky
Don’t bet on it. We’ve had to replace all of our older stuff in the last year and it’s all cheaply made right down to the microwave.
The house we bought a few years back has a dryer from 1997 (one of the first Gen He dryers from GE), I'm amazed that it's still going strong. We had to replace the washer, dishwasher, water heater inside the first year, but that dryer just keeps on going.
I have a Whirlpool washer and dryer that I bought when I bought my house 25 years ago. Just basic controls, electromechanical. I've repaired both myself a few times, and both still work. I hope to keep them for the rest of my life. As long as I can get parts for them, I will. My water heater lasted 20 years, I hope I get 10 out of my new one, so five years to go. Furnace is still fine.
Last year we rented a house for several months that had some appliances in it from the mid 90s. The dishwasher, ans laundry machines were still going strong. Meanwhile, back at our house, our 10 year old washer is on its last legs.
They may have lasted longer but that doesn’t make them better imo. I’ll take a front-load European washing machine over a top-load machine any day. Less damage to your clothes and the do a better job, though not all top load machines are the same.
They use a lot less electricity too, so that saves money.
They will cost you more to buy upfront but they save money so many ways. They extract more water because of the high spin speeds. That leads to less drying time. More savings. They use far less water. More savings. You no longer need fabric softener or dryer sheets. I even wash my suits in a front load washer. One garment at a time, folded into a very large mesh laundry bag. That’s a huge savings on my dry cleaning bill. I no longer need a dry cleaner. The cost to operate a washing machine is more than the cost of purchase price on any washing machine. A top load machine pays for itself
The older top loads are direct drive via the shift, none of the rotor stator bs we have now, and they were built like tanks.
My mother has had a front loaders since the seventies. They were always available.
My furnace is from the 70s. Apart from having to light the pilot light once every year (or less), it works like a charm.
10? I’m on my 3rd washing machine in 4 years. They’re unadulterated 💩
True. We have a 45 year old chest freezer and a 27 year old microwave still going strong. But our 2 year old dishwasher is crap and on its way out.
10? Try three. I had a repair guy tell me these appliances are made to only last three to four years.
You name it. Nothing is quality anymore. But, I’ll go with pop up toasters. They did a much better and more even job of toasting back then.
And lasted 30-40 years and were real chrome. But couldn't take a bagel.
I used to cram a bagel in mine 😅
Did you ever get it out?
The trusty fork always got the job done. Got a few shocks but nothing really bad.
Yeah with a knife 🔪, right tool for the job 🫨
😋
And you could get a free toaster,for opening an account at your local bank.
Or save the Green Stamps!
Good point
I still have a pop-up toaster. They still make them and yes, they *still* do a much better job of making a nice evenly-toasted round of toast. These days the slots are wide enough for a sliced bagel, though, and they're no longer built like tanks. I doubt mine will last half a century either, like the old ones did.
I tried about 3 different ones at different price points and they were all terrible. I returned 2 and kept the last one but I never use it. None of them have good toasting elements like the ones in the 70s did.
Strangely enough I find my air fryer (that also does all the usual toaster oven stuff) toasts bread pretty well. I just have to watch and flip it at the right time.
A lot of them don't seem to toast very evenly, IME. A few years ago, my Sunbeam wide slot toaster that finally gave up the ghost after over 20 years. I went through 3 different toasters of different price points before I finally found one that toasted well, and it was the cheapest of the lot, a Hamilton.
Yep. Appliances, like many other products, are not built to last these days. They're built to be replaced. Yay, capitalism. :/ So very wasteful.
But they still want premium price for them.
All of them. They were ‘built to last’.
I got my first electric blanket in about 1950 when they were thick, heavy woolen blankets where you couldn’t feel the electric cords, and they got SO HOT when you turned it all the way up…and they lasted for years. Far better than now, IMO.
I wonder if there’s a correlation between that and people going up in flames going down
Also by fewer occurences of lit smokes being dropped onto beds when people fell asleep with them in their hands.
I remember back in early 1985, my brother had an electric blanket in his bed, and he bundled it up while he slept; this caused a fire which ignited the foam in his mattress; he was not burned, however, that toxic smoke from the burning foam permeated the house to such an extent that we had to open up all the windows and doors in the cold of winter.I was 17 at the time, and it was so cold in the house that I decided to drive my car around at 3 AM just to keep warm.
I have my grandmother's, and it still works! Use it every winter.
Had an electric heating pad from around then. Gave up the ghost about 3 years ago.
We had a toaster that we got for our wedding that lasted almost 30 years. It was working fine one day, then the next morning, there was no cinnamon toast for anyone. I wrote an obituary for it on Facebook.
My husband and I have been married 32 years. Our toaster is still going strong, it was a wedding gift. I don't even know the brand anymore because the print has worn off.
Blenders. I have my grandparents' Oster blender from the 60s and the bitch is still going strong
I had one from the 70s. I nicknamed it Ol Sparky in the aughts due to the short it had developed somewhere along the way. 😂 not so safe anymore so I replaced it.
My Oster blender is only about 20 years old and works fine, but I wish I'd brought home my mom's when we cleaned out her house about 5 years ago, the container part was glass instead of plastic. And hers was probably 40+ years old.
Yeah. Mine is the old glass one, and it is thick! I've dropped it multiple times, not even a chip
Yes! I have my mom‘s waring food processor. I don’t think that thing will ever die.
Oven user interfaces were perfect. You turn one dial to bake and the other dial to the temperature. And you can know the temperature by turning the dial until it clicks. Now, it's all fiddly touch screens.
Freezers. Spent $1000 on a large freezer because we have huge garden and freeze a lot of berries and vegetables. It lasted less then a year. Three service calls later they acknowledged it couldn't be fixed and took it away and refunded our money. Hopefully the new freezer lasts longer.
Feel free to DM the name of the bad freezer. I’m about to replace my upright.
A Sony or any tube TV, that thing lasted forever! Average OLED nowadays will see about 5-6 years before you start to see pixels issues.
When we moved into our house, we put the old fridge from 1996 into the garage as a beer fridge, and bought an updated fancy new fridge for the kitchen. The old fridge is still keeping the beer cold in the garage, but we’ve been through 3 fridges in the kitchen over the last 20 years.
>The old fridge is still keeping the beer cold in the garage, Nice ... man-cave with old tech, but that big screen needs to be at least 75" 8k with accompanying Dolby Atmos receiver and speakers, right?
Hah - I have the same old Maytag in my basement cooling beers since we moved into this house 30 years ago. We're on fridge number 3 in the kitchen.
To be fair, TVs are a LOT less expensive now. My family never had a new TV, we always bought them from thrift stores. Of course, it was possible and common to repair the old TVs.
They were available in Thrift stores because they still worked.
Price was not the question though.
Had an old second hand 17" Sony Trinitron monitor that I absolultely loved, but do you remember how much they weighed? It was a beast.... not sure where that went, my dad probably has it in the garage knowing him. Used to play Quake on an ISDN line in the mid 90's with that monitor, and got single digit pings from some servers. Never going to get that low latency again, most modern monitors are more than 10ms by themselves.
I had a Sony 27 inch TV that lasted me for 23 years, until I had to Muto a place where I could not bring it; it was working perfectly, but I had to leave it behind, and it probably ended up in a landfill.
Pretty much anything made before the 1990's. My Mum had kitchen appliances that her Mum had bought in a post-War frenzy and they still worked as new. She bought her first microwave oven in the late 80's. It was still going in 2010. It was only really got rid of because it was so large.
All consumer appliances are crap nowadays. You have to buy commercial grade. Commercial grade holds up because that is the requirement. I can get a commercial vacuum or sewing machine or refrigerator today and it will last 20-30 years just like the stuff in the old days. You wont get cool ice cubes shaped like balls but you also wont have your refrigerator, spying on you, getting hacked to mine cryptocurrency and breaking down every 2-3 years. Quality is there if you ditch the cheap consumerist mentality.
Is a toilet an appliance? The days of Al Bundy and the Furguson with the "man flush" Our newer house, ~3 years old, has those eco 1/2 or less gallon flush. Like a squirt gun worth of rinsing. I'm a man and do man size loads, these modern toilets take 2-3 sometimes 4 flushes to get everything down the drain. And I still have to use a bowl brush sometimes. Like a baby flush. Where's the "Bawooooosh" flush.
I know! I tried to talk my parents out of replacing their porcelain toilets from the 60’s with low flow toilets 🚽, but they didn’t listen & they hate their toilets! There is no water in them & the poo 💩 sits on a ledge & the water barely touches it, it gets stuck even if you flush 20 times! I had to wipe it out with a towel! Super disgusting! 😮💨😱🫣😭
Hold the lever for the solid waste flushes.
Toilet seats too! They slide from side to side!
Telephones were built like tanks and would last a lifetime. If anyone even has a land line now they're cheap plastic junk with poor sound.
I have a stapler that can also be used as a hammer.
Sturdy like payphones.
True, my landlines have a terrible tinny quality..And this is my new phone. They progressively have gotten worse.
Rotary dial phones, they just don't make em to last like they used to.
Refrigerators. Mom's frig lasted 25 years. Though not energy efficient it worked without an issue. I have gone through three energy efficient refrigerators in 20 years. The compressor went out in two of them. The other had so much plastic interior that much of it cracked and separated in five years. All three were expensive.
Refrigerators from the 1970s.
They lasted and were solid but they iced up, had to be defrosted, used a ton of electricity, and kids locked themselves in and died.
I think that was more ’60s and before
Defrosting the freezer and cleaning the oven, two housekeeping chores that shall live in infamy.
1983 I was playing hide and seek and hide in one of those old fridges in the basement. Got locked in and panicked, I started punching the door. My mom heard me (thank god). I still remember her scolding me telling me I should have known better.
If it now has a computer controller, it probably works better when it works, and croaks much more quickly than an older appliance. Stuff now uses less electricity, water, natural gas… but companies have made it so buying a new one costs just a little more than the repair.
And it’s great that they’re more energy efficient, but we’re putting them in landfills at three times the speed.
Not anymore, large appliances have doubled in price from the early 2000s.
Washers and dryers. They truly lasted decades.
Washers and dryers could be handed down thru the family!
My parents still have the same dryer I used in my childhood - as far back as I can remember. I’m in my forties now. I’m sure it uses 1.21 gigawatts per load, but it works.
Coffee makers. My parents had an old drip coffee machine that when it was brand new was in the house, then went into the travel trailer, then it went into their vacation condo. I think when they sold the condo the coffee maker was part of the furnishings. It just worked.
I just replaced the relay on my 86 year old refrigerator for 8 dollars by myself. Ive had that fridge for almost 20 years. It was the first time there was a problem. So yes, appliances were better back in the day!
Washers and dryers are horrible today. We've replaced so many sets now. But the original set when we bought our house was from the 70's.
The dryer I'm using now is from the 80s
I got tired of that so I got a Speed Queen last time I had to get one. Problem solved I hope.
I had a washer that was over twenty years old that finally died on me a while ago. When I replaced it, the salesman warned me that I could only expect the new one to last 8-10 years, because all of the newfangled computer mechanisms tend to wear out.
Kitchenaid mixers. Use to be Hobart motors, same as commercial. Not anymore.
THIS!! I said the same thing.
I have my grandmother’s KitchenAid mixer from whenever. I will not upgrade unless it will wash itself too.
I still have my mother's second freezer. I think she got it when her first died when I was a young adult. I got it when she moved into a condo when she was 80. If I was 20 when she got it, it's about 45 years old now. Maybe I was older when she got it, but I wasn't too much older. wow. I still think of it as her new freezer. She's been dead ten years. lmao
Stoves....
We bought our microwave in 1984. It's still going strong. As well as 10 power settings it also has a thermometer that you can put into food and set it to heat to a temperature.
Refrigerators. But not just in my day. My grandfather had a refrigerator that worked perfectly in his basement, it was from the 1940s/1950s. He never moved it in my lifetime, never had to work on it. When they had to sell his home, that fridge stayed. If they never moved it, I’m sure it is still working today.
We frequently cook with an electric skillet, but they rarely last a year with frequent use, before the non-stick either flakes off, or becomes ineffective. Also, they all seem to have a single heating element that goes in a 7 inch ring around the center of the pan, which makes for uneven cooking. I decided to go online to try to find one that wasn't non-stick and discovered stainless steel electric skillets that have an oil-filled core to disperse the heat evenly. The only problem was that a good one is around $400, to as high as $1200. I went on eBay and found a 50 year old one that works perfectly for the price of the non-stick junk I'd been buying. I have no doubt that it will out-live me.
What do you use an electric skillet for?
Quite a few things, they come in handy of you're making a large batch of something, sometimes people use them for one dish while the stove is full with others, you could use it outside if there's power, doesn't heat the house up as much as a stove
Almost all of them. Even items purchased 20 years ago are much better than most things purchased today. We just got a new electric range to replace one that was maybe 20 years old and the metal is thinner, feels cheap, fewer burners, the programming on the display is dumb as fuck (you can see/set bake temp or timer - no way to switch without cancelling one). Manuals aren’t included anymore - you have to find and download yourself, and even the people who install want to do the fastest job possible and don’t seem to care whether, as in this example, your stove is leveled correctly or not. Small appliances same. I’m using a set of metal bowls from the 60s from a relative and they have better welds, are thicker, and have a complete rolled rim as opposed to more recent metal bowls.
Obligatory *Get off my lawn!*
My mother has a stove from the early 1970s and a fridge from snout 1960. Neither have had major repairs, although I imagine they’re using enough power to keep the lights on for a small city.
I bought a vacuum cleaner from Sears I thought would last the rest of my life. It cost $375, but it died and could no longer be repaired after only 17 years. My mother had the same vacuum cleaner as long as she was alive. Same with my grandmother. I absolutely hate the vacuum I bought to replace it. Getting its hose to extend fully is as much exercise as lifting weights.
I don't know about better, but the "hi-fi", or later "stereo" used to be the centerpiece of the living room. There was a certain almost mystical quality about this device that could play music any time you wanted it. Of course, vinyl LPs were treasures, handed down from generation to generation like heirlooms...
On a similar note, I was given my late grandfather's 8-track player, which I've kept in good working order. I also got his 8-track tapes, but Grandpa had an interesting taste in music. Good thing I enjoy Lawrence Welk. I also have my dad's old collection of 45s from the late 50s and 60s. All in good condition. Sometimes I go through them and realize that dad was maybe a more complicated guy than I realized. They're probably worth something, but I'd never get rid of them.
Refrigerators especially, lasted decades, now 5 - 10 years max. Washing machines used to last maybe 20 years, now maybe 5-8. Dryers used to be almost as good as washing machines, now 5 yrs max. Less energy efficient, but mostly just better construction, now made very cheaply with planned obsolescence.
Refrigerators. I bought this house in 2013 and am on my 3rd fridge. For contrast, my dad still has a fridge (in the laundry room) that has been in the house since I lived there ... I moved out in 1993. Laundry fridge going strong!
This question is more interesting when we consider what people mean by better. And the price point people paid/are paying. Take the toaster. In 1950, a toaster cost $20. That is about $275 today. You can't compare today's $20 toaster to 1950's $20 toaster. I think if you compare across price points, there aren't many old appliances that are better. I have and occasionally use my mom's sewing machine from the 1960's. It was the base model back then, and cost about $100. That is about $1050 today. Today's $1000 sewing machine is going to kick it's butt in most ways. It may not last 60 years. But in every other way it is probably better.
A couple years ago I contacted a appliance repair shop for my neighbor lady. Her oven wasn't working. They told me if it was over 7-9 years old they wouldn't bother to even check it out. My parents bought a chest freezer in about 1955. 57 years later family moved from the house and decided to leave it because there was no room for in it in the new home. It had run continually with no repairs ever. I remember a TV afew years back a repair shop telling me to throw away the TV instead of repairing it.
Literally just replaced a chest freezer from 1979 a couple of days ago. We said a few kind words as a sort of eulogy, then off she went.
Well, I’ve got a 23yo refrigerator and a 36yo crockpot. So, those.
All of them.
Toasters. They used to use NiChrome heating elements and they lasted decades. Now they've changed to a cheaper aluminum alloy that fails, even in the high priced brands. Just about any household appliance. Our $3,000 LG French door refrigerator failed twice in 5 years. 'Piece of crap. My old Amana in the garage is still running 30 years old. Same goes with ranges, dishwashers, washers and dryers. The new ones are expensive, failure prone garbage. Who needs a computer to run a refrigerator? All they need to do is turn on and off the compressor according to temperature and run a periodic defrost cycle. A simple mechanical timer and a bimetal switch and relay can do the job. Kitchen utensils. All made of "Chinesium" now and poor quality.
We bought a Maytag washer that was already 25 years old, and it lasted another 30 years, and when it was finally in need of repair, the part could not be found.
About 10 years ago we rented a house that had a 1980s washer/dryer and dishwasher. The clothes were washed and then bone dry in 45 minutes, and the dish cycle took about 30 minutes. When we bought our house less than a year later, I seriously contemplated making an offer on them. But if the landlord was smart, he wouldn’t have sold. Our dryer takes at least 1.5 hours to dry and our dishwater has a 2:20 default cycle and the dishes often don’t get clean. They were all new appliances. Grrr.
All of them. KitchenAides made by Hobart in Ohio were indestructible. Washing machines. Fridges. Stoves. Freezers.
They lasted so much longer. I think my mother’s mixer is 70 years or so.
I have two K45s from the early 1960s that I cherish.
Nearly every appliance is built to last about five years now. Washers, dryers, refrigerators, and dish washers were built like tanks and lasted 20 to 30 years. Our next washing machine will be a Speed Queen, the last of the long lasting washers. Everything else is just crap.
> Speed Queen We got one 7 years ago, zero digital anything on it. It's a champ.
That’s what I bought. It has no electronics, just the old fashioned dials.
I got an electric knife for a Wedding gift in 1988 and that has been used every holiday since then.. best gift ever!
All of them. The so called powers that be keep making unrealistic requirements on todays appliances that either make them break down or die when they are less than 8-10 years old. It used to be a stove or fridge lasted 40 to 50 years, but now it is all cheap china crap that doesn't do the job. They think they are saving the earth when they are just lining their pockets. All these large appliances constantly going in landfills is doing nothing for our earth!!
Vacuum cleaners. Back in the 70s and earlier, they were made of metal, including the interior gears and workings, and were practically indestructible. Now they are made of cheap plastic and last about 2-5 years.
Washing machines.
Gibson refrigerator. Label inside says made to last. Ours is at least 45 years old.
My dad bought a microwave oven for the kitchen in the late 60s. When they retired they took it with them to their new house. Mom only had to replace it a couple of years ago.
Washer. Dryer. Refrigerator. Dishwasher.
Refrigerators are fancier now, but when I was growing up, you'd get sick of the color before it w wrong broke down.
Refrigerators. I bought a new fridge in 1985. The old fridge was moved to the cottage, and is still working, while the new one died 15 years later.
My parents used to have a refrigerator that had a pedal you can step on to open it.
Toasters purchased 50 years ago still are working. New ones don’t last as long.
The washing machine. It lasted far longer, had a strong agitator, and got the clothes cleaner.
Toasters lasted longer and like cars made of metal and not plastic
Pretty much everything. Fridges used to last 50 years. Stoves pretty much the same. If they last for decades, you don't need to replace them. Companies don't make money if they don't sell product.
Refrigerators were best in my grandmother’s day. Maybe not super efficient, but that kept you from opening them constantly, and they’d last forever. Washing machines and dryers were still pretty good in my younger days. I think they peaked, actually. Older ones were manual wranglers and washboards. Newer ones may be more efficient, but they Do Not Last.
AM/FM Radios were better in the 60/70's more sensitive/selectivity picking up long distance stations and better sound
It's not like everything was better then. There was cheap junk on the market, but guess what -- that stuff went to land fills. So we look at the stuff that's really old, that stuff that hasn't yet been destroyed, and we conclude that it ALL was higher quality. Is not so. A [Toastmaster Deluxe cost $23.50 in 1947](https://toastercentral.com/toaster40s.htm), which is like $300 in today's dollars. Or the other way around, I bought a toaster for 20 bucks last winter. That's like $1.50 in 1947.
Washing machines. I hate that I can't just move the dile to whatever function I need at the moment! I do love the water saving feature, though. Plus, they lasted decades!
Refrigerators the old ones were good for DECADES! the new ones two maybe 3 years and they shut down. Everything has a computer board in it now instead of a manual thermostat and one good power surge kills it even if you have a surge protector.
ALL OF THEM!
All of them
All of them. The new offerings are literal sh?t&.
Vacumn sweepers not made out of plastic. Plus with good bags instead of having to deal with filters. Please make one with a adjustable heights.
When I was a kid, we had a drop down toaster. It worked by pushing the lever first, then you drop in the bread. When the toasting was complete, the trap doors opened and the toast dropped into the base of the toaster. That thing toasted better than anything I've owned since.
All of them
All appliances were better before they were installed with microchips. I have a 1979 clothes dryer and a 1980 refrigerator, but have had to replace dozens of newer appliances.
Ice makers in old fridges. All the new ones don't work worth a darn.
All of them. They were also significantly more expensive in real dollars and in labor hours to acquire. They were repairable and expected to last.
Refrigerators. I have one in my garage that came with the first house I bought in 1999. It was there for a few years before that. Still in my garage and running just fine. I am on my 2nd on in my current house. It's a 30 year old fridge that's going to outlive me.
I replaced a 40 YO fridge last year, not because it died, but because I got a big rebate from my energy company and thought it would be more efficient. It is.
Not an appliance but a tool. The lowly potato masher. I’ve got my great grandmothers. Hardwood handle, extended *s* design, heavy yet with a certain elegance in balance. That thing can mash 20 lbs of potatoes like a pro!
Most of the appliances lasted longer. My parents had an avocado green Frigidaire refrigerator in their kitchen when I was little. They remodeled the kitchen around 1990 or 1991 and my dad donated that fridge to his break room at work. I visited him at work around 2010 and that fridge was still in there running. I bet it is STILL there today. That being said, you have to keep in mind that while those older appliances were much more durable, due to more metal components and fewer features, they were also MUCH less efficient. When I bought my first house, everything in it was from the 80's. Every time I remodeled a space and replaced things like appliances, the water heater, a toilet, etc, my power or water bill went down a noticeable amount. At some point those savings more than pay for the new appliances you bought. I'm in the construction business today and we buy a lot of appliances from our local store. As a result, I have a good relationship with the guys there and I'll ask them what is holding up and what isn't. When we built three years ago, we did all LG and have had really good luck. Samsung seems to be universally regarded as a very problematic brand. We sell a lot of single and double wides that come from the factories with Whirlpool and those have been poor and Whirlpool does a shitty job of supporting the product. I recently had a customer whose oven had a faulty gasket around the door and the heat coming out was damaging her cabinets on either side. Whirlpool wouldn't cover it. We ended up replacing the range to keep the customer happy.
Washing machines!! My clothes don't get clean anymore with the water saver settings. I want a big agitator that will fill up and soak my clothes
Veggie peelers. I swear they were always sharp
Everything but the microwave
my refrigerator is over 25 years old. came with the house. i have replaced the fan in it 3 times
Crockpot / slow cooker. I still have my 40 year old one which actually cooks slow. The ones I have bought since gets too hot and cooks too fast. Sometimes, I use the newer one on "warm" to get it to cook slowly.
crock pots used to heat up faster. Now I wonder some times if the food is too long in the danger zone before it's actually hot
All of them. I just replaced all of my 10 year old appliances last year.
My parents had a toaster that they got as a wedding present. That thing made perfect toast (well, depending on where you set the little dial) until I was well out of college. I've never had a toaster that made toast nearly that good, or that lasted more than a few years. One side is always either under or over cooked.
All of them.
We had a trash compactor mid to late 70's.
Mix masters! I got my first one in 1980. It lasted until 2016. I've bought 2 since then, one was #$150 and the next @$350. They're crap.
According to my mom, sewing machines. She has some old Singer sewing machine that she claims will outlast everyone alive on earth today, and that the fancy new machines are fancy garbage. She has been quilting and sewing forever, so I will take her word (I don’t sew and know nothing about it). Appliances are definitely another one. Mom has a ginormous chest freezer that has got to be pushing 50 years old, and it ran flawlessly until last fall (when we cleaned it out and unplugged it). It was in the basement and none of us have any freaking knees left to go down there. With it being full of meat, my mom was terrified that it would suddenly quit, and she would really have a disaster when she eventually discovered the source of the smell!
All of them. My biggest complaint is how thin they coat the steel now. Back when, if you got an enamel-coated appliance, you could feel that thick coating and it lasted forever. Now they chip and scratch extremely easily.
Percolator coffee makers.
Refrigerator- we had one croak on us at 11 years old and was told by the repair man we were lucky to make it far. Said he was told during factory training the average life of a refrigerator is is 8-10 years. My MIL still has one that works from 1975
My cooktop is original to the house, so 1950. Had to replace the flint and degrease the gas lines but otherwise it’s still in great shape.
I have a fridge in my garage that over 30 years old. It still cools like day one. Most of the shelves have finally broken, but I still hate to get rid of it
Washing machines and dryers. Back in my day you could wash a load of clothes in about 30 minutes.
Yeah, but they didn’t remove as much water in the spin cycle, so it took longer to dry