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I just want everything with a heating element to use a heat pump instead. Electric heating elements are so horribly inefficient and wasteful in comparison.
I have a ventless heat pump combo washer/dryer. It takes up half the space that two machines would, plugs into a regular 110V outlet, gets HOT (way hotter than I expected a heat pump has any right to achieve), drains all its drying water into the drain, vents none of my indoor air outside, doesn’t require changing laundry from one machine to the other. Practically and mechanically it seems brilliant and I can’t imagine why I would ever buy a traditional machine ever again. Except…
It’s chock full of horrible apps and shit that I’ll never use. It’s way too “smart”, and those “smarts” are not there for my benefit. After a month or two it finally gave up trying to pester me to connect it to a network and install the app, which I’ll never, ever do. It’s never going to see an update or new firmware if I can help it, but I’m afraid that if/when it ever breaks, I’ll have no choice. I know it’s going to do things like eventually refuse to work until the computer has been “updated” to be “compatible” with new parts. And it’s not even just that it’s going to be expensive. It’s that I don’t trust it, and I don’t trust it to remain functional in the future, even if there are parts, that they won’t let me install the parts, or will require me to agree to play by their “rules” before I can.
Right to repair needs to be a thing, and people need to be able to break the ridiculous amount of both legal and practical control these manufacturers have over their devices after they’ve left the factory. We cannot and should not trust the manufacturers to support it. We need to allow independent repair.
What brand is it? I want a heat pump dryer, but I don’t like “smart” stuff.
For maintainability heat pump dryers are shit though. You can’t take the heat pump condenser out and thus you cannot properly clean it 😐. If you get lint stuck in there it starts reeking. The old condensers you could just take out and rinse.
GE Profile PFQ97HSPVDS. Not a sponsor, and not even a recommendation. It feels icky even admitting it. The only reason I am mentioning it at all is because I did manage to get it to (eventually) stop aggravating me about installing the app and connecting it to wifi and now it just works without annoyance as it should have from day one, and I recognize the possibility of having access to that feature alone may be valuable to someone. I can’t guarantee the one you buy now will even act the same way, as these things can be and are updated without notice.
I found some third-party home assistant stuff for GE smart home products on github if that’s important to you, but I haven’t even tested it for this as it still involves the appliance phoning home and everything is still gatekept through GE’s website and like I said I refuse to ever let this thing touch any form of internet connection or wireless.
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Incorrect, no connection to outdoors is required for these appliances. In the case of the ventless combo, it literally hooks up to nothing other than the standard washing machine hookup. 1 normal 15 amp power outlet, 1 hot water hose, 1 cold water hose, 1 drain hose. No dryer vents, no other tubes or hoses, no drilling or cutting, no changes at all required. It is literally a drop-in replacement for any washer, but it also dries, with a heat pump, powered from the same circuit the washer uses and the same drain the washer uses.
Also, let me blow your mind a little bit: theoretically, the cold water main running to your house contains enough heat energy to completely heat your house all winter on its own. It is cold to us, but thermodynamically it’s a goldmine and you have an extremely generous supply of it. Water represents an enormous reservoir of heat, and you can play some really fun games with latent heat of evaporation and condensation (which is exactly how heat pumps work in the first place). Dehumidifiers add as much or more heat to a room than a space heater does, using a fraction of the electrical power. That’s the power of the heat contained in water. I’m not saying that a heat pump dryer is doing this with your water supply, simply pointing out that once water is in play, it becomes way more of a complex issue than performance figures on paper actually represent.
Obviously, clean drinkable water is also a scarce resource, so using it directly for any form of heating would be wasteful in its own way, but the point is that it would be technically possible. Including water in the discussion adds a lot of really interesting possibilities to the way we manage heat and energy, and we will eventually need to start understanding how much heat we literally throw away down the drain and how wasteful that actually is. And in the process we’ll learn to save some money and maybe even make our lives a bit more convenient.
Are you Alec from Tech. Connections?
Unfortunately not, but I am proud to be compared to him.
I can definitely read your comment in his voice, particularly the “also, let me blow your mind a little bit” part.
I think they mean appliances that don’t necessarily heat an area but heat is a function of their purpose.
In the example given, a combo washer dryer, it is not necessary to have a link to the outside it merely uses the ambient air as it’s source of heat, The same is also common among heat pump water heaters.
Heat pumps absolutely do not need to connect indoors and outdoors, every fridge and freezer is just a heat pump connected to a box.
Ive had a ventless heat pump clothes dryer, about 5 years ago, maybe 6. Technically it made the room it was in slightly colder while it ran, but that heat from my house was just concentrated inside the box and then allowed to escape back into my house.
I also think there have been advances in heat pump technology either with the refrigerant used to transfer the heat or with cascading systems that run multiple loops with different heat capacity so that one loop takes room temp water to “warm” temps and a secondary loop takes the “warm” water to hot.
I thought electric heaters were 100% efficient? All the electricity you put into it becomes heat yeah?
Yea but heat pumps have a coefficient of performance of greater than 1 cause you’re moving heat instead of generating it.
So, 1 kwh electric energy to an electric heater produces 1 kwh of heating energy.
So to give you an idea how a heatpump would do: looking at my heat pump’s data registers right now, it says it used 3.6 kwh electric energy in the last hour to produce 12.7 kwh heating energy (air to water).Yeah my heat pump is something like 2000% efficient. It can cheat because it doesn’t convert electricity into heat, it uses electricity to move heat from the outside to the inside (or vice versa).
There’s tradeoffs - simplicity, repairability, efficiency.
Take washers, for example. I was looking at Speed Queen washers to replace mine. On paper they are great, more durable. But it turns out that while they have physical knobs and switches, newer models still hide a circuit board inside, so the gap between commercial and consumer models is shrinking (and not in the direction we want.)
The Speed Queen washers also have nearly half the capacity of off the shelf consumer washers, and use twice the amount of water and electricity. I did the math, and at the current utility and washer prices I’d break even replacing the washer every 5 years.
Furthermore, the local appliance repair shop that I trust told me it could take them weeks to get replacement parts for Speed Queen. For a laundromat that’s not a huge deal when it’s one washer out of twenty, for a single machine home it’s a problem.
Yes, I do wish that consumer appliances were more reliable. But barring that, the next best thing is easily and quickly repairable, and on that matter there’s brands that are qualitatively and quantitatively better in that regard than others.
I also want to point out that for some products (such as smart phones) there’s an additional trade-off between repairability and quality:
When you have screws in your phone instead of having everything glued together, that means you have additional moving parts and probably gaps between the parts, where water can enter and cause corrosion. If everything is glued together, it’s not repairable but it’s also less likely that it needs to be repaired because there’s fewer problems to begin with.
Gonna have to rebrand all that to Just A Dream, unless you have a plan to secure the capital to start that all up, and also somehow not be beholden to short term profit crazed investors who will change that business model.
Hooray! Hypercapitalism Realism!
Ooh a company that sells refrigirators that don’t suck. Call it “suckless.”
“only stuff that sucks at our company are the vacuum cleaners”
Terrible vacuüm cleaner range though
Just can’t branch out into vacuums. Unless sold as the Suckless Sux-a-lot
you could call them “anglo-sucksons”. would also be a cool name for a gay bar
Still a great dad joke for any brand of vacuum cleaner: “This thing sucks.”
Simpl, It’s that simple
Now available near you, the Simpl refrigerator!
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So simple, we got rid of the ‘e’. Don’t need it! Get that outta here.
All others are “just” too. You just have to download an application and just connect you bidet to the cloud, then just subscribe for additional 50GB of cloud storage with 30 days free trial (only applies if you chose annual billing) and you will be able to just wash you ass.
It looks like they’re available, but labeled under “cheap.” They seem to be just dials. I’m sure a spyware version has crept into the list though. https://www.popularmechanics.com/home/g38757143/best-cheap-washing-machines/
None of those are particularly long-lasting, and definitely not built well. 4 out of 5 of their “best” are all whirlpool family appliances, which have been getting so cheaply built in the last few years that they feel flimsy. The list is basically an ad for whirlpool.
Are the spyware ones long lasting? They’re much harder to fix as well. You might be right about the ads, so here’s more:
https://www.amazon.com/Pataku-Portable-Washing-Function-Apartment/dp/B0C7V5B59G?
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-WA40A3005WPR-White-Washer-Dryer/dp/B0BDMQNBCJ?
Disclaimer: this is very US centric information.
I have yet to see laundry that has to be connected to internet to work - there are several that can be connected, but no one can really answer why a consumer would want to (even the mfr reps kinda just stutter and mumble about vague “convenience” features). I wouldn’t say laundry is heavily spying on us… yet…
I wouldn’t buy whirlpool family because it all feels incredibly cheap and breaks easy. They have service techs almost everywhere, but their part supply is garbage so you are often waiting on parts. LG service is nearly non-existent. If you live in a big city they might have one or two techs that they can send out, but that’s it. They are better on parts, but they very rarely admit the appliance is FUBAR and replace it.
Speed Queen makes absolute units. Like, you could probably drop it down a flight of stairs and then hook it up and run a cycle. BUT, they come with downsides - mainly price point and capacity, but they are also very hard on clothes, and the TR series wash cycle sucks because the agitator is fixed to the tub (this design has been tried so many times and sucks every time) - the TC wash cycle is fine.
Samsung units are very similar to LG units, but their service is generally better - much more parts in stock in the US already so fixing it when it breaks is usually pretty quick. They don’t have a great service network, but they are quick to admit they can’t get a tech out and just offer replacements.
Frigidaire/Electrolux units are “fine”. They generally also have service everywhere and reasonably part supply chains, but they aren’t built fool-proof.
Cheap GE units are probably the place to be for cheap units, they aren’t built as cheaply as the whirlpool family typically, service is generally decent. They still aren’t build to last more than 7-10-ish years. Most appliance companies in the US realized their average customer was buying new every 5-7 years anyway due to moving or remodeling. That meant building them to last considerably longer than that means they are building them to be used by the second hand market. Similar to the gaming industry in the last several years, they don’t want that because they don’t make money on that. Save money during production, make a worse product, more sales/profit.
I feel like this post is already too long… I’ve been working with appliances both repairs and sales for about 12 years now. If people have questions I’m happy to answer :P
Great info, thanks.
Thanks for the insider info.
Could you please elaborate on Speed Queen washers being hard on your clothes? Do they not have the same wash settings that other washers do (like delicate or gentle)?
it is. these lists are likely pay for play and run by a pr firm in tandem with the brands’ pr teams
With TVs, which have had a smart version for a longer time than appliances, the dumb, spyware-less versions have actually become somewhat more expensive. Nothing stopping other devices from going the same way.
who the hell pays $1000 for an appliance?
They’re top pick is only $500
Who the hell pays $500 for an appliance?
People who want it to last.
That’s a large part of why “things aren’t built the way they used to,” is wrong. People don’t want to pay a lot for appliances now, so they get built with cheap parts to meet that price point.
There were cheap garbage appliances in the old days too.
That’s fair. I do suspect those live-forever refridgerators probably did cost a bomb way back when
Yeah, those suckers were the equivalent of like $2k today.
But even cheap appliances can last years if repaired. Washers and dryers are pretty simple to fix (electric only), and it’s cheaper than you might think for common issues. Lid switch replacements, drum rollers, heating elements, sensors, etc. run like a max of $50, and you can always find a YouTube video of someone replacing the part in the exact model you own.
Its not easy to find durable/high quality cheap machines.
IANAL but somehow I get the feeling that entering those industries as a new guy would be a real pain in the ass at the patent office.
For what do they need a patent?
It’s more “whose patents will they inadventently end up using?”
Patents tend to last 20 years. Most major appliances probably don’t have any currently valid patents that are likely to get in the way unless you’re trying to make them “smart.”
Just commenting that you said IANAL and “pain in the ass” and I’m still laughing
They might not be a lawyer, but they still know what they are talking about
Refrigeration is a technology.
Or is he proposing just putting a big harvested block of ice in the bottom of a cabinet?
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Yes, those would have been better words to use.
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It’s always clear until it isn’t.
My refrigerator is still going strong at 22 years
45 years here. It’s loud as fuck but it still keeps things cool.
It’s the Linux philosophy in appliances. I’m down.
Until private equity gets their grubby paws on the company.
Make that shit a self-funded slow growing cooperative.
Or at the very least steward ownership
Its very hard to sell a product based on it being “reliable” and “good quality”. This is because everyone fucking lies in their marketing about those exact qualities and its inevitable that you will get breakdowns and your customers will complain about those breakdowns and destroy your reputation.
Everything is fake now. Its just a matter of using marketing to tell the customer your product is exactly what they want.
Some of these products already exist. They are expensive. If you go back and look at the long-lasting appliances of the past, they were also expensive.
One example is Speed Queen washers/dryers. Also Bosch dishwashers.
Many of these become enshittified. Bosh is an example. My sister kitted out her kitchen with many Bosch appliances when she renovated, like 10 years ago. All have had issues.
The fridge has peeling faux chrome handles, the microwave button/wheel/control had to be replaced, the washer had the drum bearing fail, and the drum housing is sealed, so you have to replace the whole drum assembly, which costs as much as an entire budget washer…
Get ready to make no money
It’s Just money, though!
