LONGEVITY

Nothing lasts forever. Stuff breaks…

And when it rains, it pours. That’s been the case here the last few weeks.

The toaster quit. The fridge leaked water on the floor. The garage door wouldn’t open. The sink drain rotted out. The right channel on the stereo died. My GPS quit. The DVR would only display a fatal error. The RO water pump quit. Several light bulbs have burnt out.

Suddenly, I found myself wondering what else is going to break! I also pondered how long stuff should last. Certainly computers don’t last very long. Nor do light bulbs.

But some things that have broken lately should not have failed the way they did. The sink drain was not sloped properly, and consequently muck lodged in a two foot section of the pipe causing it to corrode. The garage door spring wasn’t tensioned sufficiently when it was installed, causing undue stress on a plastic gear in the opener. One connection in the toaster overheated, in contrast to other similar connections that were as good as new.

The DVR failed when its hard drive bit the dust. It was no different than the hard drive that failed in my PC less than a year ago. In contrast, I have seen many hard drives run fine continuously for over five years. So why do some drives fail in less than a year or two?

Some failures are freak accidents. That appears to be the case with the water line that suddenly came loose on the fridge after 15 years of use. But other failures were clearly traced to sloppy work along the way. And I suspect the garage door opener uses a plastic gear because it is cheaper and will last until the warranty is up. A new gear is only $1.40 on eBay, but the labor to replace it costs almost as much as a new opener. Had I known, I would have bought a more durable unit.

I suspect the bottom line is that most people do not make a conscious effort to make stuff last. Which results in less discretionary spending in our struggling economy.