Electric Overload

and the problem with a disposable economy

Our thirteen-year-old daughter wants to use a blowdryer, but our off-grid solar power system cannot sustain it. As with all humans her age, she is beginning the pubescent process of separating her identity from her parents (Read: lots of arguing about making her own choices.) and forming her own unique identity. I remember this process in my own life as being a bit confusing. Deciding who I wanted to be and what I wanted to stand for was as daunting as determining who I would sit with on the bus. In 1986, I was in 7th grade and I journeyed away from pop music and into hard rock, specifically big hair bands that were playing on the radio. I loved Bon Jovi, Skid Row, Cinderella and Poison-- men who wore more make-up then I've ever worn in my life. I also wore my hair very big, as was the trend at that time. Extremely big. Like a tower of red bangs jutting out of my head. Of course, in order to create this hair monument, I needed a blowdryer (and lots and lots of hairspray). And I had a blowdryer. I used the blowdryer as any "normal" person living in a home with electricity supplied by a massive grid would. But for my daughter, not so simple. Though, not impossible.

I have had the same conundrum due to my Vitamix. I adore my Vitamix. I promise you this is not a commercial for Vitamix (though if Vitamix would like me to promote them, I would do so gladly.) In the years before Vitamix, which I will refer to from this point out as BV, I owned several blenders. Each year BV, my blender broke and I had to purchase a new one. I use my blender fairly regularly to make smoothies or blend soups or sauces, as I love to cook. I used to buy second hand blenders, which are easy enough to come by, but then I decided to buy a new one to see if it would last longer than a year. Alas, new ones seemed to break even faster than the 1980's models from the thrift store. The whole process felt so wasteful, annoying and financially detrimental. 

I had known about Vitamix for years. I received their mailers often. They have a lifetime warranty and got nothing but rave reviews, so I decided to give in and purchase one. I am cheap. Or is it kinder to say thrifty? I don't like to spend large sums of money. A cheap Jew, such a stereotype, but I swear it's just a coincidence. I justified my spending; if the Vitamix lasted for five years, it would pay for itself. So I dropped the $500 on the least expensive model and became a Vitamix fan for life.

That was ten years ago. As I mentioned, they have a lifetime warranty, but I haven't needed to use it. I have had the same blender for 10 years without any problems! Yeah, it's loud, but that's because the thing is a machine (in the slang and literal sense). It's literally a small engine. It can pulverize anything. I got rid of my ice cream maker and juicer because the Vitamix does it all. ​

I tell this story for two reasons. One, we must consider why we live in a culture that thinks it is perfectly acceptable to own an appliance for one year and have to replace it because it is cheaper to buy a new one than to fix it, if we can find the parts to fix it or someone with the skills to fix it at all. The repair economy has been replaced with the disposable economy. We live in a time of enormous waste as our oceans support islands of trash and yet we still continue to buy products that we know will not last, that do not offer lifetime warranties, that are made of fragile plastic parts.

I'm sure you've heard of the 100-year-old lightbulb, the Centennial Lightbulb. It's in the Guinness World Book of Records and has been featured on Ripley's Believe it of Not! This lightbulb in a fire department in California has been burning since 1901 and has almost never been shut off. It was produced by the Shelby Electric Company. The lifespan of the average filament lightbulb is 1,000-2,000 hours. The average for an LED bulb is 25,000 to 50,000 hours. The Centennial Lightbulb has been burning for over a million hours. The Shelby bulbs were discontinued in 1914 after being bought out by General Electric. 

Pride in durability used to be at the focus of marketing campaigns for products, but in the 1920s, businesses began to realize that a product that doesn't wear out is detrimental to business. And hence, planned obsolescence was born. There was even a cabal created called the Phoebus Cartel where a group of electric companies got together and agreed to limit the lifespan of the lightbulb, even halting research so a better lightbulb couldn't be created. Though incandescent lightbulbs are now being phased out for the more efficient LED bulb, planned obsolescence remains in nearly all production industries. As long as we continue to purchase items of poor value, companies will continue to make them. And that is why I love my Vitamix so much because it is of such high value that it has a lifetime warranty. Now, I often look for items with a lifetime warranty when shopping.

This brings me to my second point. The problem is that like my daughter's blowdryer, I can not run my beloved Vitamix on our solar powered electric system which consists of six 205 watt solar panels and four 6 volt golf cart batteries. It's a fairly solid system and in the Mountain West we get 300 days of sunshine a year. But for a blowdryer, Vitamix, electric heater, vacuum, power tools or the like, we need to run the generator. The generator runs efficiently on gas and propane, but still, it requires fuel. Also, it's kind of a pain in the butt to walk outside, around the house, and turn it on and then do it again to turn it off. We might attempt to get a remote control for it in the future (if that will work through strawbales) or create a shorter route to it, but for now, it's a bit of an inconvenience just to make a smoothie. I do it though. I consider it a nice little walk and take a moment to stare at the stars or the mountains, whichever is in view at the time. Living off-grid is sometimes inconvenient. It's a trade off for decreasing our carbon footprint, reducing our consumerism and being closer to nature.

My daughter has started cutting her own hair. Big chunks of red locks are often tossed into the plant next to the bathroom sink until I nag her a few times to clean it up. She is sculpting her once shaved head into something resembling a hipster mullet. She wants to look more androgynous and is refining a look called cottagecore or frogcore or granparentcore or some core like that. As with most kids these days during the pandemic, she doesn't go to school. She has very little face to face interaction with her peers. She meets people on Discord or Among Us and gets her culture from TikTok. Unlike when I was 13 and I based my style on what I saw on the streets of New York City and what I heard on the radio--at first hair rock, then new wave, then classic rock, then alternative rock--experimenting with different styles based on music scenes, she has an infinite number of possibilities available to her on the internet. Except one, in person interaction, thanks to the plague. 

I don't think she wants a hairspray shellacked waterfall of bangs, but she's hoping to get some more serious volume for her pseudo-mullet via the blowdryer. I told her it was entirely possible. She just needs to learn how to use the generator. The upside is that she'll finally get off her computer and get some fresh air, even if just for a few minutes.