<p>I find it very discouraging how disposable major appliances have become…why should it be accepted that we will need to replace these items every 7 years or so?!?
And with my whine, I’ll just add that my 5 year old refrigerator is suddenly not keeping things cool enough…running and kinda cool…just not cool enough to be safe for my food and family!!! ARGGGg…and right before the holidays!</p>
<p>We have a Bosch in our “new” kitchen and all works well except for the soap drawer that hasn’t closed since 2005. I just ignore it. Reading this thread made me realize that my new kitchen is now 8 years old! Maybe it’s time to repaint!</p>
<p>I hope I’m not jinxing myself/my house by reading this thread! </p>
<p>Our house was build in 1925. Everytime we have someone in the house for an improvement/repair they look around and say “they just don’t make houses like they used to”. While I sometimes become frustrated with the replacing, fixing, upgrading etc., anytime we do a home IMPROVEMENT (meaning, WE choose to make the change) I see the love and character I have for the house. </p>
<p>This said after just spending 3-4 weeks of constant leaf blowing, bagging, raking, mowing to try and keep up with the MILLIONS of leaves from our beautiful but leaf heavy tree laden neighborhood! I think that job is just about done - for this year. :)</p>
<p>My neighbor has a clever method disposing of raked leaves that I adapted. I pile the leaves and run it over with the mower mulching it finely. I use it to mulch trees and bushes. When I had a contractor, they used to haul away two truck loads. It is still a lot of work but I don’t need a contarctor to take leaves away or someone to mulch.</p>
<p>Yep^^^ that’s what we do. But we have a large lot with lots of ground cover, bushes, flower beds etc. so we use the blower to blow the leaves onto the grass and then run over them with the mower with a bag on. Really condenses them - but still lots of work and every couple of days needs to be done again (trees all lose leaves at different times).</p>
<p>OP, I feel your pain. I ordered a dw last week, which was to be installed Friday; they called Fri am, it’s not actually in stock, won’t be in until early Dec (no dishwasher for Thanksgiving, hooray!). And the price of dishwashers is astonishing–“midrange” is 1500. Now my dryer has conked (probably at least 10 years old, bought with house), and new washer and dryer can’t be delivered until Saturday–and when they do, I’m really afraid they won’t be able to get it into the space (stacked, they fit in the available space, but maneuvering them into it may involve taking out the door frame, and possibly part of the wall). I’m off to the laundromat to wash the towels I had to use when we had a flood upstairs yesterday, caused by having pulled the washer out to see how it might work. </p>
<p>I’m counting my blessings: the oven is working, and the refrigerator and freezer (although I still have to finish cleaning out the freezer after losing power in the Halloween storm). So far.</p>
<p>A good online source for all stuff home-related (not just garden) is Gardenweb.com; check out their appliance forum. I would have been lost without it when we redid the kitchen at our old house.</p>
<p>My washing machine (Kenmore) is over 20 years old, I think we had to fix it once.</p>
<p>My dryer is only 5 years old, but the previous one was over 40 years old. DW got it from my MIL when she graduated college many years ago, we had to replace the belt once, that was it.</p>
<p>Kitchen range and double oven are KitchenAid, no problems in over 10 years.</p>
<p>Dishwasher is 12 or 13 years old never had a problem.</p>
<p>Don’t get me started in the Sub-Zero, though. Erk.</p>
<p>Knocking on wood everywhere I can find it. :)</p>
<p>We had a leak in the upstairs bathroom (shower/tub). Plumber had to tear down the wall to get to the offending pipe. Well, the leak damaged the floor under the tub, so the bathroom floor came out. Found out the original installed toilet was cemented down…that got broken while being removed.</p>
<p>The best part of my upstairs bathroom being torn apart, was being in the downstairs bathroom looking up through the ceiling and the dog looking back down at me - wagging her tail! “Hey, what are doing down there?”</p>
<p>I now have a new upstairs bathroom and a new ceiling in the downstairs bathroom. Not to bad for a 60+ year old house.</p>
<p>btw - the 1,4 and 7 keys on my microwave don’t work anymore. We are lazy and working around it - lol</p>
<p>Home Depot has some attractive pre-Black Friday pricing for major appliances going on, in addition to coupon codes that can be used online (thanks to Fat Wallet forum):
$70 off $700 using Home Depot Coupon Code BATH70MN
130 off $1200 using Home Depot Coupon Code BATH130GB
$200 off $1700 using Home Depot Coupon Code BATH200QY
$275 off $2400 using Home Depot Coupon Code BATH2759M
$350 off $3000 using Home Depot Coupon Code BATH350HQ
$70 off $700, $130 off $1200, $200 off $1700, $275 off $2400 or $350 off $3000 on Bath Items [exp 11/23/11]</p>
<p>I just used one of those, along with sale price, to purchase a new LG washer to replace my “new” 7 year old Kenmore He3T that has the CPU electronic problem that apparently plagues this model and costs over $500 to repair. I, too, yearn for the days of appliances that lasted 20+ years - the notion of disposable appliances goes against my frugal nature.</p>