What Can You Say About a Three Year Old Coffee Grinder that Died?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.19.07
It used to be, if your appliance broke down, you could take it in and get it fixed. Now that most are cheap, you just throw it away and replace it. According to a study of the yellow pages, between 1998 and 2006, the number of listings for appliance repair shops has dropped by 62%. According to Normand Tetreault of Personal Edge, a Quebec company that specializes in the sales and service of small electric appliances- "many products are now made in China and it can be hard to get parts". He says also that appliances are less robust, with a lot more plastic.
Our three year old seventy-five dollar Cuisinart coffee grinder just died, and I am pretty handy and thought I would look inside. I opened it up and found- a circuit board. Why are there electronics in a coffee grinder? I knew there were three switches in it, but could only get at one without buying an extra long screwdriver, and what would I do when I got to it? they are all moulded into the casing and there is no way I could replace the part.
I determined that I would go to the Gaggia store and buy their cheapest machine, a strong, mechanical unit with no circuit boards that would last as long as I do. The owner told me that it was three hundred and seventy-five dollars. I choked.
This is what we have come to. If you can afford to shop at Williams Sonoma or the European import shops you can get quality that lasts. Otherwise you get formerly great names like Cuisinart at the outlet mall or Wal-Mart and throw it away after three years, adding to the growing pile of waste that is burying us.
I don't need circuit boards in my coffee grinder; I am smart enough to tell it when to turn off. I will pay a fair price for quality. Am I alone?
My Kitchen Aid grinder that looks like it was made in 1958 works fine after 4 years. Has an old fashioned "toggle" switch and that's all. I got mine from a return bin. Many customers hate them because they manage to spill grinds around the cupboard top regardless of how well you use them and they end up getting returned. If you're not a clean freak its the way to go.
I wouldn't necessarily second guess that active electronics constitute needless over-engineering. Second, just because a grinder costs $300+ doesn't mean it will last indefinitely.
I definitely agree that more things should be fixed before being replaced. And the standard for what devices are throw-away has been raised really high.
Have you absolutely determined that your grinder is beyond repair? You often have to dig, but lots of parts are available for all manner of appliances. Certainly it's hard to stomach if the replacement part(s) shipped to you are ~$30, and a new machine is ~$50.
What about a coffee mill? A mill uses no electricity and I would suspect it's pretty easy to fix.
http://www.fantes.com/coffee_mills.htm
So you are complaining because you can't afford the grinder you consider properly made, but the cheap grinder you can afford isn't reparable?
Is it that appliances have gotten more expensive in the past 50 years? Or that as they have become cheaper and more democratic, more people were able to afford them, but at the cost of being over-engineered and overbuilt.
Plus I am not sure that it is all that green to have such a special use appliance for a service you could easily have done wherever you buy your coffee from.
akatsuki: Ground coffee goes stale much faster than whole bean coffee. Also, fresh grinding the beans makes for a stronger drink.
And I use my coffee grinder to also grind whole spices which last much longer than ground spices. Now, you could use a mortar and pestle for that, but it's a lot of work.
Besides, any good treehugger shouldn't drink coffee. Only herbal teas grown within 100 miles and in water heated with solar power.
LA: The coffee is fair trade and I get my power from wind and water only, but agree with your other points.
Is 75 dollars for a coffe grinder cheap? I do think so.
I have been using a Kitchen Aid blade coffee grinder (~$30) for the last 3 years. I agree with the reviewer above, there are some spills, but it is a good grinder.
It can be disassembled and washed, so I also use it for spices and nut flour.
Your overarching point about the state of consumer goods is right on. I thought I would point out a company that bucks that trend: Sennheiser headphones.
All parts on Sennheiser headphones are user replaceable. I sat on my my pair this past weekend and broke the headband. I was able to order a replacement headband in 5 minutes online. Even the cord is designed to be modular and just plugs right into the cans. (I've replaced that part several times.)
I've had the "same" pair of $180 headphones for 10 years now. I wish all my products were designed this well.
I hate to sound like a fanboy or a spammer or something, but I have the same frustration you do with poorly designed, non-user-serviceable products.
Maybe TreeHugger needs a new section devoted to sustainable/repairable appliances? I'm willing to pay a bit more for stuff that will last and is home-repairable, but finding those things can often be a research project in itself. Cool Tools (http://www.kk.org/cooltools/) is the closest I've found so far.
I second what PJ says. We consumers have been lulled into believing that a low price is the be all and end all of a product. Good design, good construction. I'd be interested in products that extoll those virtues.
(ps imho blade grinders
I checked my little grinder with my Kill-A-Watt and found out that it draws a watt while not in use! A no-visible-electronics coffee grinder is a phantom load. It's on a switch as part of my phantom load hunt, but most people probably don't check these sorts of things, and with no lights, no displays, nothing that looks powered up, it's a sneaky one.
I'm looking for a hand powered grinder (for all sorts of things, not just coffee) that is well made. I'm not sure what to think of the ones I've seen. Most seem either way too flimsy and plasticy, or way too expensive.
Any suggestions?
Take a look at the Zassenhaus conical burr hand grinders. They are adjustable, consistent, inexpensive (at least compared to electric grinders that produce similar results) and well made.
I'm living in China right now and this particular post has a certain unintentional hilarity for me. Take the disposable (i.e. non-repairable) product mentality and multiply it by an entire country. It is literally not possible to purchase well-made consumer goods worthy of repair; to do so we need to go to Hong Kong. Local bulidings are literally constructed with an eye toward their ease of demolition (because when the labor is cheap enough, it's easier to demolish and rebuild than rennovate). "old" buildings in Xiamen (the ancient and historical port of Amoy) date to the 1950s; most are from the 1970s or later. While I obsess about the reparability of my trusty dive watch (8 years old!), a billion people aspire to a life of disposable luxury that would make the most unrepetent American Wal-Mart shopper blush.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where we do not pay the true cost of almost any product. If we factor in the cost of replacement, environmental damage, and government subsidies (to oil and large corporations, etc), then we would see that the cheap _____ that is bought from Wal-Mart, isn't really that cheap. I usually try to buy the best quality ____ that I can afford. This often means that it will last longer, uses better materials, wasn't made with child labor, wasn't made in China, and usually costs quite a bit more. There are exceptions to the rule here and it does take some initial research.
I found this page because I have the same model coffee maker with the same problem.
My solution was to wire it to bypass the fancy electronic switch and it works just fine.