We got our first heavy snow of the season over night. Our snowblower is an old rust-bucket MTD. It's a brand that used to be made in the United States, actually somewhere in Ohio, I think. I bought it through craigslist a few years ago.
I hit a big rock with it last year at the end of the season and the shear pin (the previous owner used Aluminum bolts) broke. I planned to fix it all year, but of course didn't worry about it until the last minute. It actually wasn't such a bad repair. I had to drill one of the bolts out because it broke, but the other one actually came off after I blasted it with a torch.
Snowblowers are simple machines, so almost anyone who set out to fix or maintain one could do it. Also, they're on craigslist so frequently, and are so cheap in the used market that it's noteworthy anyone buys them new. A new snowblower for a driveway like ours is in the $1500 range. The equivalent used one that's just a couple of years old would probably be under $500. If you're handy, you can easily find equipment that is easy to fix, and close to free.
In corporate/consumer world many people see their free time as precious time, and their work time as valueless. For that reason, they'll trade their work hours for a dumb purchase that saves them free time. That is the whole trick to this current iteration of the system.
Once you get into value consciousness you dematerialize from the corporate consumer world of fresh paint on chinese steel, and credit purchaser at a big box store and rematerialize into the world of rusty old made in the US equipment in some interesting person's garage. It's really like traveling into a deeper historical layer of the United States.
No comments:
Post a Comment