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My husband tries to repair everything, and is usually successful. Most companies include "proprietary parts" in their gadgets nowadays, to try to circumvent the clever fixers among us (Apple was doing this with their computers back in the 90's!), but my hubby can often figure out how to replace defective proprietary parts with off-the-shelf alternatives. He's repaired our freezer by drilling a hole in it and adding an extra fan inside (something unfixable was broken, so the cold air wasn't circulating) and our washer and dryer are over 20 years old and work great! Most of our computers are 10 to 20 years old - the software is outdated, but still does what we need it to do, so we're happy. We have a couple of modern computers for our business, but only because some of the programs we use force upgrades, and won't work on older operating systems (which often won't work on older computers). 😡 The air fryer is still disassembled amd stuffed into in a box in the attic (it was designed in such a way that oils from the cooking foods circulated throughout the guts of the machine - unfortunately, no way around the problem. It was a pretty cool gadget, but we haven't replaced it because we don't want to spend money on something that will eventually stop working.

Good column! I'll be very curious to see the "right to repair" issue - I was aware that hubby is voiding warranties every time he opens up a gadget, but I didn't realize he might be breaking the law! 👮‍♂️

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Jan 11Author

Having a washer & dryer that worked for 20+ years is amazing! I recently saw a post from someone who had a blender that worked for 40 years, and there's absolutely nothing on the market that comes close to the quality of good in the 80s & 90s now.

And yes to the computer program updates! My mom has a DELL from 2009 that's mostly functional except the OS will not allow us to update it — it's only windows 7 and no higher which pretty much makes it obsolete despite working fine, grr.

Thanks so much for reading, Jeannine! Your husband's repair work is very cool (and sustainable) and I hope more companies & countries begin encouraging similar practices.

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Jan 11·edited Jan 11Liked by Nia

In some ways, you're probably lucky the OS won't allow updates. The automatic updates the Windows inflicts on our business machine have caused all kinds of mischief (including forcing us to "update" to a much less useful shipping program).

I'm very lucky to be married to someone who's so good with repair work - my "repairs" tend to entail a lot of duct tape and baling twine. 🤣

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Jan 11Author

Oh I've disabled those automatic updates! They happen at the most inopportune times and I've previously lost entire drafts because it just up & began updating, to my horror.

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