Scrapping an Electric Cooker

Yes, and Dennis D made a similar point too. Very valid.

I like mending things, but deliberately don't do it once things reach a certain state. At some point mending isn't worth the effort, because you end up spending a fortune on spare parts for an unreliable machine. Some items (like computers) aren't worth fixing because a new one will always out perform something made three years ago.

I'm not convinced that my logic is correct and would be interested in what others think.

I will always repair if the fix is easy and cheap. Thereafter examples of my personal guidelines include:

• Toasters, kettles, irons, cheap power tools, minor electronics - replaced as soon as they break, no messing.
• Most consumer electronics - consider repair if just out of warranty, otherwise replace.
• Most kitchen appliances, - repair up to 5 years old, then depending on cost to fix, always replacing on first fail after 10 years old.
• Cars - repaired until unreliable, or cost of repair exceeds about £1000. After 10 years old, reduce 'cost exceeds'' by £200 each year. I haven't had a car last more than 15 years, but I don't drive quality cars!
• Central Heating. repaired until unreliable: after 15 years consider replacing.
• House, always repaired unless the cost exceeds that of rebuilding.

Obviously much depends on the nature of the item. I can imagine keeping a lightly used lathe going more or less for ever. To me it makes a lot more sense to replace the motor in a lathe than it does to fix a vacuum cleaner.

I'm not very consistent, for example I've saved a lot of money over the years by patching stuff up and by making minor repairs to consumables like ink cartridges. Also, I worry about the damage consumerism and planned obsolescence are doing to the planet!

How do you decide when items are "Beyond Economic Repair"?

Dave

I suspect, that ' we' on this forum, are far more driven by 'sentimental' value and thus, 'Beyond Economic Repair'

does not compute.

Just a note about the wretched Britannia range-cooker.

The killer, for me, was when I noticed that the insulation on about 20% of the wires was already cracking !!

It's fine popping-in a new element ... but do check, first, whether it's worth the effort.

MichaelG.

Hi Silly Old Duffer,

I'm coming 67 soon and to prove it have two small sheds lined with "might be useful" bits in boxes salvaged from dumped or broken items. Like yourself I'm an incorrigible fixer..but... I can honestly say that over the years only 2%, if that, of all that was ever rescued was found to be useful for my projects. Maybe I'm not creative enough but it is generally more trouble than it is worth to "Make things fit". The main exception is machineable lumps of metal.

One little triumph does come to mind though. One Christmas Eve the pump on the washing machine gave up and with everyone off work and three young kids and a fretting Mum in the house I had a little root around in the local dump. You could do that then. A useable pump was found and Christmas was salvaged and the old machine ran for years after.

My new Year resolution is to tackle the clutter. Ask me in Dec. how I got on.

The asbestos mentioned may well be glass. It was pretty commonly used for sleeving. I have worked in a company that used a lot of asbestos. You might say that the elderly needn't worry to much about it providing they aren't mining it or breathing in rather a lot of it. It tends to kill slowly and the blue stuff is by far the worst.

I have seen one useful item that it might be possible to make from part of an electric stove.

It starts with a pole say 30" long. One end can be clamped to a bench. The other end has a platform plus insulation, then a space, then a heating element, more insulation and then a cowl.

The heating element glowed orange much like electric cooker ones can. It was used to forge the end of some 3/8" square punch steel into a pretty hefty screw driver blade. It could also be used to harden it. Tempering too I assume if the end was left out. I think one of the idea was that it would take things to a nice cherry red and not overheat the steel. The unit might have taken stuff up to about 1" square. Plugged in so can't have had that much power. Probably 110v so 15 amps at that max.

Rather old idea of an engineers screwdriver. Used when slotted headed screws were often used for fixings. Even on tools such as a toolmaker might be involved with. Press tools and all sorts. Square shaft so that a spanner could be used on it. However as that part wasn't heat treated I have seen some that rounded over.

John

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As much as 2% ?

After having cleared endless workshop up after someone has died i have seen all the glass jars full of rusty screws.

Brake shoes off some unknown obscure car on the rivets.

Boxes and boxes of assorted stuff that even defies being put into a category like bolts or screws as they contain bolts, screws off cuts of metal rusty brake pipe fittings, worn out fan belts. Ball races either rusty, worn out or seized.

Next time something modern breaks and is due for a replacement, just do everyone a favour, even if it is only yourself in 10 years time when you have less energy than you have now and dump it.

Edited By John Stevenson on 02/01/2017 15:46:31

Me too, as of this today.

I wasted an hour this afternoon tidying up before I could start work and it's still a mess. For a man with limited space, I own far too much junk. I'm annoyed with myself.

Will I really sort out the clutter this time? Don't bet on it!

I hope you have more will-power than me Breva.

Cheers,

Dave

A friend came round a couple of weeks ago looking for some 3/4 whit bolts for his traction engine,sods law a few days previous I had a small tidy up and chucked out a tin of old big bolts which I never used and the binman came that week.If you keep useful junk a lot is never used ,throw away some near useless stuff and its wanted next week , I am 75,will have to move smaller home soon and there is an awful lot to sort through,the scrap pile in the yard is growing though not fast enough for my wife.I must admit that nowadays I throw out most modern failures i.e. boilers,cookers washing machines,tvs etc not worth the effort to strip and save anything,its all metric anyhow.

Would make a nice little cavern for the fishies to live in too.

Michael W

Hi Dave,

All this talking about cookers got me thinking. For the record,my Mother bought a gas cooker in 1937 [She still had the receipt about 40 years later when we changed to natural gas not sure when that happened,but the cooker was still working,just could not get jets for it,or so they said ! That cooker did serious work in it,s time. The replacement cooker was made from recycled bean cans and packed up in no time flat,no more than ten years.

My Mother,s comments were not to be printed ! When she bought the first cooker,she also bought a water heater,known as a "Geaser" [no sure about the spelling here ]. These were an electric water intended to be fitted over your bath,if you had one [we did not ] or over a sink. This thing held about 15 gallons and were fitted with a very small heating element,so they took ages to heat up. This unit was made by Semments [wrong spelling,I know],before the last war. That heater was still working up to the time I had to move out of my house [that,s another story ] in 2006. I could not take it with me,so it ended up in a skip,a sad end to such a wonderful product.

As an aside,my last job was building transformers,from 3kva to 5 mva and along the line,we came across some old transformers which had been built by the same German firm which had made our heater. All that was wrong with them was that the E,S,B had not bothered to to maintain the paintwork on the tanks,so they rusted. I was there when the transformers were taken from their tanks and the workmanship on them was something else. All the busbars were chromed and all the connections were perfect ! This was in the mid 1970,s These units were installed in the late 1920,s or early 1930,s. As far as I know,they were just returned to service and are still in use.

These days it seems that you should not expect more than two or three years from anything, I can hear my Mother turning in her grave !

It seems that the idea is that you use it once,then scrap it.

Dave,you might get a few washers and self tapping screws from it,but not much else.

That sends a chill down the spines of those of a certain age!

Neil

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_Water

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 19/08/2017 20:18:49

A few years ago the door on my oven shattered a fortnight before Christmas. I tried to order a new one from Electrolux but there were none in stock. Instead Electrolux delivered me a replacement oven, free of charge, on Christmas eve. There is a Santa!

Currently, my microwave has died, I understand that there is over a kilo of copper in it, I need some copper so I will be dismantling it.

The oven shelves are made of a high tensile steel. If they were made from mild steel they would sag due to the heat cycling.

Norman, my microwave "Died" so I stripped the panel off it & it had an internal fuse which had blown, don't know why so I replaced it & it's been fine ever since,worth checking. Detest the "throw away" society

Graham.T

Thanks for the suggestion Graham, I've already had it apart and it is not the fuse unfortunately.

On a previous fan oven, the cooling fan (outside the oven) of the fan motor cut through the motor's live wire. This welded the motors ball bearings together. A new motor was obtained from one of the online suppliers and fitted with little difficulty. The damaged wire was repaired and strapped down so it couldn't flap about.

Curiously, the current oven had its fan motor stop a couple of weeks ago, taking the fuse out as it did. I made do by taking the back plate off the inside of the oven and using it as a non-fan one. Works perfectly well in that mode! The fan motor still rotates freely. I probably ought to have a look and see if it's recoverable without money, since I've got a lump of silverside and some King Edward's waiting for dinnertime tomorrow .

Gosh Larry, amazed to see this one come back to life. I took said cooker apart to make it easier to take to the tip recycling facility. You're 100% correct: all I got from it was a few washers and some self-tapping screws!

The replacement is pretty flimsy too. Not sure how long it will last. In the meantime it works very well, fingers crossed. My oldest domestic appliance is a microwave bought 29 years ago to warm baby milk for my son. It's in better nick than I am.

Dave

Frances, the transformer contained 300g of copper far less than the youtube video, that I had watched, suggested. That's pretty much what I had expected, these days I only believe what I have experienced for myself.

What makes it worse is that I am not experienced in electronic stuff and did not recognise the second fuse holder and found, after I had cut some wires. that there was a quick blow fuse that had indeed blown. Maybe it had blown because of some uneconomic fault. I will never know, now I have to keep looking for some scrap copper. (and buy a new microwave!)