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Boston to run new series of fix-it clinics for residents with small household items that need repairs
By adamg on Mon, 03/20/2023 - 12:27pm
Boston is currently seeking handy volunteers who can help residents get small appliances and other items to working again, rather than simply tossing them in the trash.
The BPL has a form up for folks who have experience fixing various small items, to serve as "fixit coaches" to help resident repairs one of several types of items: Bikes and skateboards, clothing and fabric, computers and phones, toys and wooden items, kitchen equipment, small electrical devices and jewelry.
May 1 is the deadline to apply to help out at one of the 12 BPL locations at which the city will run the clinics, following similar clinics in the past.
Also needed: volunteers who can help set up the clinics, check people in and assist with post-event cleanup.
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Comments
Pretty challenging to fix
Pretty challenging to fix appliances that are so cheaply made today, with foreign parts.
and for no compensation!
and for no compensation!
Aw, must be tough going through life so uncaring
Nobody's forcing you to help your neighbors. By all means stay home.
Great idea
I might have to sign up. We HATE throwing things away for environmental reasons, but these days new products are expensive and so is labor.
Saved a perfectly good fridge with a bad control board. The oven, the dishwasher. Some times an hour is all it takes.
It can be an easy fix
I've fixed items where it took longer for the soldering iron to heat up than to fix the problem with a dab of solder.
Are you going to drag your
Are you going to drag your fridge to the clinic?
Yes.
I’m quite strong and live nearby
Sure, why not?
You can stick it on a hand-truck or a bike trailer or whatever and haul it over. The big problem of course is that you need to let the coolant settle. That's an issue with ACs as well.
house calls exist for a reason
At some point it makes sense to hire a repair person. They still exist, you know. Is the effort of bringing your fridge to a clinic really worth the $150 service call fee or whatever it is?
He also mentioned the stove and dishwasher. 3 appliances at once is a lot to haul.
And this assumes the volunteers can fix a bad control board. They don't have an appliance parts warehouse in their backpack.
What's next, bringing the furnace? The chimney? Why not haul the whole house?
Well, the fridge is probably a bad example
because it would generally be full of food (and so it couldn't be transported as I described) and would also need to be fixed quickly.
But yes, large appliances would generally be a problem to haul, not because of their weight and bulk, but because of their gas and water hookups. However, you could take the control board *out* and then bring that to the repair clinic, which I think addresses your original point, assuming you're the same anon as earlier.
You don't necessarily need to get a replacement repair board. Sometimes it's just a bad solder joint or a busted cap.
(I agree that this would not be standard fare for a repair clinic, though.)
Be nice if the BPL didn't assume...
...everyone has a Google account.
Any rate, I hope to be there with my specialty screwdrivers.
Support right to repair laws
It's great Boston is doing this.
It's important the state keep up with right to repair laws. Companies should be required to sell replacement parts and provide service documentation for almost everything. Forcing consumers to junk things which can be fixed and/or electronically limiting repairs to "authorized" outlets is wrong.
Right to repair
Right to repair is huge to me. I'm guessing you already follow Rossman on YouTube?
To get a printer fixed
I had to
(1) find out the broken part's number, via Google search
(2) find out the printer manufacturer's parts warehouse phone number, via a more extensive Google search
(3) call them and order the part. (They did say "no returns, at your own risk", but I expected that.)
It took me ten minutes to install it.
The manufacturer's documentation says, about the error I was getting, in essence, "the printer is broken, this model isn't supported, why don't you buy this brand new printer?"
Oh, yes, I support right to repair laws. Do I ever.
Today's Printers are garbage
There's a reason why you can pick a laser printer now for 400 bucks that 10-15 years ago would have cost over 1k. They have managed to make them the cheapest damn things ever... cuz where they companies make their money.. the ink.
They moved revenue making parts (the fuser, and drum) to be replaceable.. read, more things to buy. And not only have they done that, but they've also combined these into the toner kits..
SO EVEN IF YOUR FUSER/DRUM ARE OK, YOU WILL TOSS IT OUT BECAUSE YOU'RE OUT OF TONER.
What a collosal waste of money and what a make bank for printer mfr's. I will never buy a printer that does not have the fuser and drum as seperate **replaceable** parts. Yep I'll pay 200-300 more, but the cost of one drum will pay for that.
Yet my last company had a LaserJet 4V from 1995 still chugging away printing ledger checks for finance. We only replaced it because Windows 7 (at the time) stopped supporting it and the check writing software suggested we upgrade.
Hated to toss that thing. It was big. It was a power sucker but it printed 7000 checks a week for 17 years without a hitch. That's quality.
Oh, I agree. Cheap easy to
Oh, I agree. Cheap easy to break trash, and printer companies make all their money on overpriced deliberately-low-ink-content cartridges.
Which is why I bought a refillable inkjet. Just refill the ink tanks when they get low, they say, and you'll save a ton of money!
What they don't tell you is that eventually the print heads wear out. Fine, it's still better than having to replace the cartridge every three months. I'll just get new ones.
That started an internet odyssey that went through many Amazon complaints, unofficial tech support sites, and dubious sites in China and Russia before I found out _how and where_ to get the replacement parts.
And it turned out that the warehouse people didn't care who they sold the parts to. Just give them a part number and a credit card number, one more item out of the warehouse, everything's fine.
Right to repair, and right to find where the replacement parts are. That's what we need.
I hate inkjets. I won’t even
I hate inkjets. I won’t even take one if it’s offered to me for free. The ink is always drying up even before it runs out.
I’ll stick to lasers. The cartridges aren’t that expensive if you get the aftermarket ones.
Meanwhile I'm sitting here
Meanwhile I'm sitting here with my little Brother laser printer that has that exact problem and LOVING it, because all my old printers were ink-jets and good for a single print before the ink dried up two weeks later. The toner replacements suck but at least I get a year+ out of each one.
Crazy how standards have fallen.
Great to see this
Kudos to those people taking charge of this. It's amazing how simple a fix can be and you don't have to buy another one. No useless trash and you save serious bucks.
I'd love to see more of this.
i approve of this.
especially for laptops/fones:
https://www.cnet.com/culture/reporters-roundtable-the-human-cost-of-gadg...