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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Concrete weighs 2.5 as much per given volume 150 vs 62 pounds per cubic foot. So, there are significant trade offs involved.

Also, adding a sealed water container creates a few more ways for these things to break down which was a larger concern when washing machines lasted ~5x as long.

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> when washing machines lasted ~5x as long

Planned obsolescence is so damned depressing. Imagine how much CO2 and energy could be saved if washing machines simply lasted as long as they did 25 years ago (concrete counterweight or not!). It's sad to see these examples of how consumerism and marketing have actually reversed the progress of humanity.

Is it not possible to legally mandate a minimum level of quality for motors, bearings, repairability etc? I guess this stuff is incredibly hard to do without creating weird unintended consequences.

Washing machines are build to die by design now. Most disposable brands (Samsung, LG, Electrolux, Whirlpool, anything from supermarket) use specially selected unprotected alloy in the spider (part holding drum to the shaft).

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?...

Fun fact - drum itself is stainless. Good brands (Miele) use stainless spider and are bulletproof.

At the very least you could have removable concrete piece. What's hard to move is a big heavy thing. A big light thing and a small heavy thing are easier to transport.

What if they used sand instead of water?

Then you need to pay to ship sand. The upside is it would probably be easier to install, downside if it breaks you need to deal with sand.

But it doesn't need to be shipped from the factory in China to the user. Sand can be locally sourced cheaply. Washing machine installers just need an additional material on their truck, in addition to the tools and plumbing supplies they already carry. 25kg of sand costs $0.50 from a landscaping yard.

Somehow, I don't think they ship the concrete blocks from China.

Why not? Concrete is cheap in China and shipping is cheap right now.

Well, I don't know about your house, but in my house I don't have hoses with free-flowing sand guaranteed to be right next to my washing machine when I install it. A washing machine that required you to buy sand too would have a hard time in the market; it may be irrational in some sense, but that would be perceived as a huge installation burden by the market and it would not do well.

Excellent points.

Do you have the sand at home? If no, hoards of customers would have to fetch it one by one from some supply, actually causing more environmental damage in sum

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