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Comment by h2odragon | Hacker News Reader

I've seen two people replace dishwashers because the power cord wasn't connected well and failed. They don't include a power cord with the appliance, here; you buy your own and wire it up yourself, or the installers do it for most people I guess.

So when this hurried connection made in an awkward place turns out to have been poor and breaks after a few years; "the dishwasher is broken" and a repair shop charges half the cost of a new one to come out and look at it... It made sense to these folks to just go ahead and get a new one without the stains etc.

Lots of electronics get that treatment, its too complicated to think about what's inside it; so the whole unit is either working or broken but not considered repairable.

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A lot of people have zero confidence in their ability to troubleshoot things and won't even attempt it. Calling a professional will probably cost $100 just a starting point for a house visit.

So they from that perspective a janky power cord and burnt out motor both fall under the same category of "it doesn't turn on".

I had a dishwasher installed by a "professional" that used an ordinary wire nut to connect the copper dishwasher wire to aluminum wire in my house. Which later resulted in smoke billowing from my dishwasher. Fortunately caught it before anything else was damaged. Then rewired the cable properly.

its actually a tough connection. even if you don't have wire issues like you did, its a high current joint that's subject to regular vibration, rather large heat swings, condensation and high humidity, etc. and they usually put it in this little box thats hard to get to and easy to subject to damage when installing or pulling the unit out for troubleshooting.

For what it's worth, I can attest that installing a dishwasher is slightly less complex than installing a water-cooling system in a PC: if you can do one, you can do the other.

out of interest, where is "here"?

USA, where almost everything else does come with a power cord.

seems strange - do you know why this is? in the UK i'm pretty sure they come with a cable, though i've just realised that i've never actually bought one! washing machines definitely do.

Yes, here in the UK appliances that work off a standard circuit and can be plugged into a standard socket (so 13A max) come with a cable and fused plug. This applies to washing machines, tumble dryer, dishwashers, etc.

On the other hand, appliances that require too much power (more than 13A) e.g. double oven and some hobs, or cookers do not come with anything and must be wired with an adequate cable, circuit, etc. In general circuit, switch, etc. should already be installed (otherwise you're majorly out of luck) and you only need to buy a 1-1.5m length of adequate 3-core rubber flex to connect your new oven. It's very simple to do as long as you know how to strip a cable and use a screwdriver.

I dunno. It may have something to do with the fact that many people wire them up directly to the power circuit, especially in older houses. I've included outlets on GFCI circuits for the kitchens I've built, and seen others built the same way: those situations call for a normal power cord with a plug.

As I understand it, older appliances had a 3-wire cord with two hot wires and one neutral wire. An additional ground was added, making requiring a 4-prong plug. We came across this when we replaced my mother's electric stove.

When I bought my house, the (nimrod) flippers didn't hook up the stove, they just pushed it into place. Never having installed an electric stove, they didn't know you order the plug separately. As it turned out, the connection was so old that I had to special order a plug.

There are a bunch of different 220V outlets still in use, and as someone else noted, sometimes a major appliance like a range or clothes dryer will be hard-wired in.

Edit: see https://www.askmediy.com/220-volt-plugs-receptacles-configur...

(scroll down to the bottom for a look at the full spectrum)

It is tough calculus to choose a repair even if you do it all yourself. Say a 400 appliance. Its old so worth say 200 now. You need a 75 dollar part. There is some large chance the part you buy isnt quite the right variant you need or you screw up then install and then you just lost another 75 dollars and still no working appliance!

We recently had a dishwasher repairman fix our ~15 year old dishwasher. We chatted about buy vs repair and he noted our fixed-and-woking-again dishwasher could potentially still last longer than a new replacement, because of worse quality of the new ones.

That sounds about right.

My mother had a washing machine for 25 years and it had only had a couple of belts replaced.

Her new washer failed within a year, and has been replaced by a washer that has also failed within a couple of years.

Electronics failure in both. The control board is expensive. Not like a $25 belt.

I'm sure humanity is so advatanged that such board can be manucatured for 5 USD or so. Does it even have a CPU and a heat sink? It can hardly be more complex than a Raspberry PI.

And that’s assuming your time is worth $0 too. Unless it’s a clear win, or just something I feel like taking apart and learning about, I’ll usually use it as an excuse for an upgrade.

True, but the replacement appliance will be even less reliable due to planned obsolescence and more recently supply chain problems.

Anything built in the last few years is simply going to be less reliable on average.

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