should DIY be a green cause

[tabbypurr]

how do they not get sued out of existence?

NT

[tabbypurr]

That's all half true. The reality is a considerable percentage of what's faulty & what's thrown away is worth repairing. And much isn't.

NT

[charles]

A great many years ago, my brother in law was fitting battens to a concrete walled cellar, so he bought a new B&D hammer drill. (this was before the days of SDS). In the morning he took it back to the shop complaining the motor had burnt out. He took the replacement back the following day with the same complaint - but he'd finished the job and ended up with new drill.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Glad to oblige.

[Tim Watts]

Spend a lot of time finding one if the job was out of my league - or DIY if it wasn't :)

[whisky-dave]

Does anyone get thier shoes repaired anymore. Seen wuite a few mobile phone case shops doing key cutting PC & Mac repairs and shoe repairs all from one shop.

[charles]

There's also the cost of someone's time to be taken into account. DIY repairs can be worth doing, but paying someone do to the job is most likely uneconomic.

[michael adams]

With modern moulded composition soles i.e around 90% of Clarks shoes nowadays, never mind the cheap end of the market, proper repair is impossible as they're made as a unit.

Traditional shoes with leather shoes can still be repaired and there are plenty of cobblers around if you know where to look.

Many of the kiosks appear to specialise in repairing heels on women's shoes.

michael adams

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[tabbypurr]

like I said it's often worthwhile. But we live in a throowaway culture and repair places aren't set up for it, they haven't moved with the times.

NT

[charles]

But, things have become far more specialised. Instead of "a kettle element", a repair place would probably need half a dozen different types. It's bad enough trying to find the correct size of shoelaces. An when it comes to radios or TV's it's not just a matter of replacing a valve!

[michael adams]

I only ever buy cheap plastic kettles nowadays. And I very much doubt it would be possible to remove the element even if someone wanted to. Putting threads on plastic components is probably uneconomic as compared with gluing or moulding components in place.

michael adams

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[michael adams]

Its only "worthwhile" if the persoin doing it isn't costing their time.

But that's assuming that whatever it is is repairable in the first place. Many things such as headlights in many cars and many similar "sealed units" are so designed as to be impossible to dismantle let alone repair. And even with things which can be repaired, assuming that the correct parts are available - a problem which appears to beset even many washing machines and boiler "specialists",by the time the item has been dis-assembled, the fault diagnosed and repaired it will often have been cheaper for the repair place to supply a replacement unit instead.

It simply isn't economical except for people doing it as a hobby.

Same as with most recycling certainly as practicised in the UK; where sentiment is allowed to outweigh straightforward economics.

Whereas in some subsistence economies its economical for people who would otherwise be unempoyed to spend all their time scouring rubbish dumps and landfills. A situation which fortunately doesn't yet apply in the UK. Salvaging timber from skips is different, as most of it is superior to what's on offer "new" in the sheds.

michael adamas

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[John Rumm]

Its more economic certainly - but also more environmentally wasteful in many cases. You might also argue its necessary if you have an economy based on consumption - having stuff that lasts and can be repaired might them be considered counter productive.

Its a good argument, but frequently not realised out in practice. For example a boiler maker might profit nicely from selling you a new PCB as a self contained unit since it probably has several 100's of percent markup on it. However the face that Geoff et al can make a living refurbishing existing PCB suggests the only real justification for the business model adopted by the OEMs if financial and not environmental.

however I was suggesting that, say, blindly championing renewable power generation over all alternatives, without giving any thought whatsoever to dealing with the non dispatchability problem, or suggesting sack cloth and ashes solutions to other problems while ignoring human nature are examples of a "green causes" that are plagued by many inconvenient truths.

[John Rumm]

Indeed, which is why a DIYer with a little bit of knowledge can cost effectively do many things that are not viable to others.

Just think how many electronic devices one can repair and carry on using for the cost of a couple of capacitors, 10 minutes and some solder?

[John Rumm]

If you think DIY wastes materials, you should see the way some of the commercial builders operate... I have seen complete pallets of unopened materials loaded into skips at the end of the job as they have no way to transport or store the unused materials. Site hordings made from hundreds of sheets of WBP ply simply burnt on site etc.

I thought leaving them in the box wasted them ;-)

[John Rumm]

Which is fair enough. Although you could also argue that tool hire shops also fulfil that need.

I thought that is what uk.d-i-y was for (when its not just a tired audience for harry's islamaphobia)

As do the various maker events and fixit fairs that have sprung up in recent years.

DIY is unlikely to put any trades out of work - as the general practical abilities and time availabilities in the general population fall.

[whisky-dave]

We've thrown boxes out when they are past the date printed on them for H&S reasons, I don;t normally do that at home unless they're 10+ years out of date not just last years.

[John Rumm]

Not even sure it would do that. Its a nice idea, but its questionable how well it can work in reality. I can see that it will make available a large pool of low quality cheap tools. (let's face it, if you are buying top quality kit, are you likely to lend it to just anyone without having a reasonable idea that they will treat it well and return it in good condition?)

[John Rumm]

I have seen the claim about tool use made a number of times (and to be fair it would be supported by the fact that many tools have a design life of less than 10 hours run time).

Just think how many tools you have replaced the brushes on - which in many cases might only do 40 hours...

[charles]

I remember many years ago at an amateur theatre seeing someone rummaging in my tool box. "What are you looking for?" "A chisel." Ok, I had a couple in quite good condition - "So what do you need it for?" "I need to open tin of paint"