{"id":3515,"date":"2014-01-14T21:49:03","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T20:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=3515"},"modified":"2014-01-14T21:49:03","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T20:49:03","slug":"why-dont-we-repair-anything-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=3515","title":{"rendered":"Why don’t we repair anything anymore?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shed<\/a>Why don’t we repair anything anymore?\u00a0 This is the question that the Guardian asked recently<\/a> and which met with an enormous response.\u00a0 And its a good question.\u00a0 When I was younger it was common to have a variety of products repaired.\u00a0 Now its difficult if not impossible.<\/p>\n

As we wrote in “No oil in the lamp”<\/a>;<\/p>\n

“This is counter-cultural since we live in a throw-away culture. When the authors were young this was common and a whole network of businesses existed to facilitate<\/em>
\n repair of just about anything. Now it is much more difficult. Nevertheless it\u2019s still possible to get shoes and clothes repaired. Neil had a zip fail on his cagoule. This has years of life left in it so he paid a local clothes repair shop to replace the zip – it was far<\/em>
\n cheaper than getting a new coat. Andy has rescued furniture that was being thrown out and used it to make kitchen tables. While it\u2019s far more difficult to get stuff repaired, replacing consumer goods or parts of consumer goods has been made far easier by the internet. So when the Hollow family needed a replacement foot pedal for an<\/em>
\n old Singer sewing machine, we bought one off the internet. When a second-hand laptop keyboard had some letters fail Neil bought a new keyboard (having first ascertained that replacing the keyboard was really easy to do yourself ). This was far cheaper than replacing the laptop. There are lots of websites, such as Freecycle or Gumtree,<\/em>
\n where you can pick up things for free.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

My main failures have been with our car and electronics due to my lack of knowledge in these areas.\u00a0 These are related the main problem is cars have so much electronics in that they are now beyond repair by most people now.\u00a0 I remember my grandfather servicing his car- at least some of the time.\u00a0 He also made his own furniture – something that is definitely beyond me.\u00a0 Apart from those in the passage above my main successes have been with power tools – replacing worn out parts and cycles.\u00a0 I also built a shed extension to store wood fuel and put a PV system on- although that is not a repair.<\/p>\n

Why have we got into this position?\u00a0 First, with the rise of China in the late 90’s goods became cheap as offshoring took place.\u00a0 Second, this coincided with relatively cheap energy which was necessary for the long supply lines.\u00a0 Lastly obsolescence\u00a0 is built in to most products.\u00a0 After all the economy is built on the idea of endless growth (even in North Korea).\u00a0 From 2000 this started to change.\u00a0 The oil price leapt up.\u00a0 Wages in China are no longer as cheap as they used to be.\u00a0 Offshoring is now starting to go into reverse.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 the price of material goods is still too cheap to be worth repairing in most cases, unless you are prepared to have a go at it yourself.\u00a0 It will take peak oil and the scarcity that will bring to make us repair stuff.\u00a0 Hopefully then reuse will be designed in.<\/p>\n

This post is part of the occasional series on alternative economics.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why don’t we repair anything anymore?\u00a0 This is the question that the Guardian asked recently and which met with an enormous response.\u00a0 And its a good question.\u00a0 When I was younger it was common to have a variety of products … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,23,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peak-oil","category-practical-low-carbon-living","category-slow-living","category-transition"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy don't we repair anything anymore?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why don't we repair anything anymore? 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