I know some companies offer 90-day returns etc, but what item would you think everyone would benefit from if it was an industry standard to have a test drive like new cars?
My nitpick would be microwaves. I have tried picking out what I thought was decent microwaves in the past but it’s hard to know exactly how it functions without using it. For instance, my microwave has an express button (30 seconds) or a minute plus button. You can only use one of them, if you’ve hit the minute button the express button doesn’t let you add 30 seconds while it’s active and vice versa. Also the beeping, even if you hit the stop button and open the door when it gets to 0 seconds, it still goes through it’s “I’m done” beeping which is loud and repetitive making you stop it at 1 second and still having to click cancel which makes noise. So what’s your choice?
Refrigerators, dish washers, washer/dryers, any appliance really. But I want the test period to be 90 days, it’s a good length to properly use and determine if something is decent or a steaming pile of shit.
My microwave has a fish setting I shit you not.
I’d prefer a microwave with zsh, honestly
I’m more of a good ol’ bash kind of guy. Keep It Stupid Simple, they say.
Don’t bash your microwave
LoL
HVAC systems.
When my wife and I we had to replace our forced air furnace and central air system in the late autumn due to carbon monoxide literally the evening before our son was to be born, I felt under pressure to get something in place.
I told them I needed a more powerful air conditioner for all the unique heat-generating equipment in my basement, especially since our old system had trouble keeping up. They said that the new unit was more than enough for the square footage. I reiterated again, that air conditioners don’t cool square footage, they cool BTU’s, and the average home doesn’t have a grow op and server farm in the basement generating significant heat. Then, they decided to hit me with the old “I’ve been doing this for {x} decades” speech.
Needless to say, I’ve had to consolidate servers, stop indoor gardening, replace the bulbs in the house with those shitty blue-hued LED’s that can’t dim right (and dimmer switches to handle the change in load characteristics), take the weather into account when cooking indoors and clean both sets of A/C coils on a more frequent basis. The air conditioner still can’t keep up and when we have a string of hot days, we can’t always count on the cooler evenings to get the house back down to “room temperature”.
Oh, and now our old chimney drips water into the basement.
Normally, they try to talk you into overshooting your AC needs, so you end up with a house that’s the right temperature, but too humid. Strange that they undersold.
I get the sense that across the board, hvac people literally just glance at a house and proclaim the size of system you need. There’s all sorts of calculators online where you can put in all the relevant info, and it will calculate your needs accordingly, but they just ignore that.
Most comments have covered the biggest ones, but I’m going with a toaster. I have bought some really fancy toasters that can’t consistently toast a slice or bread or bagel and burn the edges and I’ve have some non-name junk tier that do great. It really seems like this should be a solved problem at this point, but nope.
My GF did extensive research before buying our new toaster because almost every single one seems to suck. She finally got an expensive one from SMEG. Nice name. How hard is it to make a toaster that doesn’t suck? They’re SO simple.
The youtuber Technology Connections did an episode about toasters and how much better they were in the past. Retro toasters are apparently the way to go.
Mattresses. Some of the major brands offer a trial period but they also cost a ton of money and are still a hassle dealing with. Memory foam mattresses in a box can be great quality but if you dont like it, no chance youre getting it back in the box. If you brought it home in a car you now have to rent a truck, get some help and its just a bad experience if you want to return the bed.
The 2 companies I’m aware if that do returns (endy and purple) both pick it up from your house for you as part of the return. You are right in that companies with that deal tend to be overpriced, but it’s not like they can resell those used mattresses for the same price they got them.
Personally I prefer spring mattresses and ice never seen that sort of deal with them.
Pet owners.
Are you a land lord?
No. I just think having pets should require a licence, mandatory lessons and a trial period.
Spatulas with overly-long handles. Nothing like constanty banging it all over a small kitchen.
Those little lights made to look like light switches, with their weak-ass magnets.
Clamp lamps that have scant threads on the reflector. They like to pop off and can actually instakill an incandescent.
As far as a house itself: installed carpets. It’s everything you hate about carpets, but permanent. They’re especially loathesome in bathrooms.
Food
