Keep white goods white?
I just heard about an engineer with a customer who has a green washing machine. Not a “green” washing machine – a green (coloured) washing machine. It was under an extended warranty with a repair limit of £125. Unfortunately, the machine is beyond economical repair as far as the insurer is concerned and they scrapped the machine. “Now this customers kitchen is all green. Green fridge, freezer, kettle, toaster need I go on. The manufacturer no longer makes a green machine and the insurer only supplies replacements in white. Fashion, don’t you just love it!”
I’ve always viewed non-white white goods as gimmicky and this shows how impractical it can be – particularly with flamboyant or bold colours. White will always look good, and any colour but white is likely to fall out of fashion. When it does you will find you just cannot match up an appliance that must be replaced.
Although it doesn’t help anyone currently committed to coloured kitchen appliances I can’t help feeling that you are better off with white. Some coloured washing machines do look nice, it’s just that I don’t like the fact that manufacturers have no commitment to keep producing any particular colour and can stop making them any time they like. This can leave people who followed the fashion with no supply when they need to replace one. They can even refuse to supply certain spare parts such as control panels and doors in the same colour forcing an ugly colour clash. This happened a lot with vacuum cleaners and there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen with larger appliances too. Hoover (for example) produced an array of coloured vacuum cleaners in the 1980s and 90s, but then when customers needed new bag housings, handles, bag fronts and other parts replacing they refused to supply them in the correct colour. Instead they placed a leaflet in with the part saying this was considered a “suitable replacement” and that colours are only cosmetic. As long as they supply a replacement part that fits and works they are meeting their legal requirements to supply spare parts for a reasonable period of time.
These fashions are similar to things like bathroom suites. The more popular a colour becomes the quicker it starts to look “common” and people start rejecting it. If you see a bathroom suite in burgandy don’t you think “yuk!” that looks so old fashioned? (Sorry if anyone has one – we used to as well) Now when you see a white bathroom suite it looks fresh and ironically modern even though it was very old fashioned before.
People thinking of starting out a new kitchen or changing over to the latest colour should at least be aware of the possibility that they may not be able to keep the colour coordination in the future unless they pick white.
Written By - Washerhelp on May 10th, 2007 with
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