Case in point. Our Fellowes DM8C shredder died so I took it apart and was delighted to find that it was easily serviceable. Two stripped gears. So, I jumped on the Internet only to find that parts are not available. My delight was short-lived.
So here goes 25 more pounds into a stinking, bulging and leeching landfill, when it could have been repaired for a few bucks and 20 minutes of my time.
I usually take stuff apart before I throw it out and about half the time find that repair would be easy if the parts were available.
I hate the baggage of more legislation but think that something might need to be done in this arena.
All too often even when the parts are available they are so expensive that there's little difference between their cost and the price of a new unit, in relative terms at the very least.
Thanks. I forgot to mention that. I am so adamant about this issue that I often buy the parts anyway just to keep the stuff out of the landfill and to feed my ego. I feel good when I restore something to service.
Back in college, I bought all the guts for an electric percolator, spending I think almost as much as the whole thing cost.
I had found the perc in the trash, and I didn't even drink coffee. So I gave it to Goodwill after it was fixed.
I have other stories like that, but also have stories where I controlled myself.
Right now, people here slowly but easily convinced me that when the motor in my roof fan fails it would be cheaper to buy a whole new fan than to buy the motor at the local motor store. I have the receipt and paid more than 80 dollars last time. But what will I do with all the other parts? In theory I could use a spare thermostat (the current one is 24 years old), but in practice I think it could last until I die (OK, not really, I probably do need a spare thermostat, so I guess that is what I will do, but let's pretend that wasn't there. What would I do with the spare housing and fan blade? )
One thing I could do is call the motor store and negotiate with them. I'm sure I paid retail last time, but they'd probably sell it to me for wholesale or close if they believed that I planned to go buy a whole fan complete at the bigbox.
The motors last between 4 and 12 years and the OEM motors were at 12 and 4, and the others were in the middle. So I can't work off of that.
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