Hindering repair information from technicians’ equals long waits and high costs and customers, sending more appliances to landfills.
In the right-to-repair movement, home appliances are an overlooked area. Difficulties repairing large appliances have flown under the radar, even as evidence shows that they’re more prone to breaking down than they once were. This leads to more expenses for consumers and more people to give up and replace their appliances.
Appliance are hard to fix because manufacturers don’t make them like they used to. Consumer Reports estimated in 2019 that 40% of all refrigerators will experience issues in the first five years. For dishwashers and washing machines, the chance of having an issue within five years was 30%, and it was 20% for ranges.
Data from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that 2.1 million tons of waste from major appliances went to landfills in 2018, up from 1.2 million tons in 2005.
Lawmakers have started to take notice and large appliances like washing machines, refrigerators and dishwashers, are becoming the next in right-to-repair movement, with a new bill in Congress and fresh interest from the Federal Trade Commission.
The proposed bill would require companies to make tools, parts and diagnostics available for any product that depends even partly on the use of electronics. The very digitization that makes appliances more failure-prone could also end up ensuring they’re easier to repair.
The appliance industry will fight those rules, but technicians believe the companies will ultimately benefit when anyone can make repairs and will benefit the environment when customers are becoming more sensitive about e-waste.
