Repair or replace. That question often comes up here. I had two examples in the past week.
I have a Rubbermaid mailbox and post that wad damaged in the snowstorms. Replacement post, delivered $54 New mailbox and post $52
The light under the kitchen cabinet burned out. It is a fluorescent fixture that takes an F15 bulb Replacement bulb $6.88 New fixture including bulb $6.96 The fixture is "assembled in USA" too.
Makes one wonder how they do the pricing of this stuff.
We don't do dishes until the mail comes first. Sometimes the mailman leaves his coffee cup too.
I'm not sure how old it is, but over ten years. Until this year's heavy snow, it has actually held up well against the plow debris. Maybe it just got brittle over time, but it was cracked at the bottom and I had one hell of a time breaking the rest of it off. The design is a steel rod pounded into the dirt, no digging, no cement to mix.
The one feature of this mailbox we really like is the telltale flag. When the MM opens the door, it pops up a yellow flag on the side and it is visible from the house so you know if the mail came. We get mail late (sometimes around 5 PM) so it has save many a false trip to retrieve it. Not a big thing, but on a very cold or rainy day, we appreciate it. One of those things, once you've had one you wonder why every mailbox does not have one. Even all the Rubbermaid don't.
[I caught the humor-- just had to say. . . .] Last summer I just happened to look out as a truck hit my Rubbermaid mailbox and sent it
50 feet up the road. Mine is on a 4x4 post mounted on a round post so it can swing when the plow hits it.
The post was fine. The little lever that tells me when the mailman has opened the box was missing. But otherwise, the mailbox was fine. It was just 'unsnapped' from the mount. Snapped it back in-- and saw the little lever thing in the grass, which also snapped back into place.
By the time I got around to putting it back together, my wife was already out buying a new box-- so now I've got a spare in the garage for when a tank runs over the one that is out there now.
I bought four four foot fluorescent fixtures, and a dozen bulbs, and with the power company rebate, the cost was zero. I'm like you, how do they figure this stuff.
It's called the Gillette business model. Give away the device, and you have them by the short and curlies forever on the consumables. Inkjet printers are famous for that. In the case of the shop lights, the power company rebate is because of reduced demand (in theory), but because THEY get a tax credit for promoting 'efficient' lights.
Are you talkin' about me? Are YOU talkin' about me?
Absolutely. It was more than 100 feet from our door to the mailbox, sometimes in the snow or rain or cold.
I don't know why these aren't more popular either. My mother bought one, that screwed on to our metal mailbox, in 1958! You'd think everyone would have one by now. But in 7 years in the suburbs then, I only saw 4 or 5 others, and here it is 50 years later and still they are so uncommon.
Hers had a weight on one end, with a thin metal piece that got clipped between the mailbox door and the side, and a yellow metal flag on the other end. I saw one or two with a parallelogram shaped set of metal parts that caused the flag to go up.
But those are long gone afaict. They do, however, sell electronic transmitters that are supposed to know when you get mail and beep in your house. Far less reliable, needs batteries, what a project, when the yellow flag is 100% reliable and should last for 50 years.
Just like an inkjet printer. Once you have that fixture, you are "stuck" buying bulbs. Unless you want to remove/re-install the complete fixture every time - which MOST people do not want to do.
Pricing- manufacturing and parts is a small fraction of the total cost, so the difference between the bulb and the housing plus bulb is minimal.
They sell the whole unit cheaper than the (most expensive) part because they move a lot of whole units. If they don't sell very many replacement bulbs (and at this price they probably don't) then the cost of inventory's much higher- they stock something that takes two years to sell, that costs them something.
And if they didn't stock the replacement bulb people would complain- What do you mean I can't buy a bulb, I have to buy a new one, throw away the whole thing and reinstall it?
'Cuz that just ain't NATURAL. I'm sure people on this group have whole piles off stuff out back that is just missing one part. Too expensive to fix, but too good to throw out, etc. And every few years, you get to look like a hero to family or friends, because you had that now-hard-to-find spare whatever in stock.
Are there any tinkerers and DIY's that don't have a touch of OCD?
What kind of ballast did either light have? I'll make a SWAG that the heavy copper wire ballast will now be more costly than an electronic switching ballast with small light transformers. At one time electronic ballasts were more expensive than boat anchor ballasts.
It's the Gillette business model: Give away the razor and sell the blades.
In your case, I recommend refilling the cartridges. We just bought a set of refillable cartridges (six) for $13 from an Ebay seller. Even if you DON'T refill them, the initial charge of ink (included) is still way cheaper than OEM replacement cartridges.
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