Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I’ve meant to answer this for days. 😕
Yeah, well UKW took another upwards jump on Alexa the other day, now we’re inside the top 300,000 sites according to the stats. With any luck it’ll continue.
Any input is good IMO, even if I (or others) don’t agree with it personally, but then I’m pretty much able to argue my point’s when it comes to it. 😉
K.
Re: Servis Tumble Dryer
Here’s the thing…
These Servis dryers actually seemed to be okay as we didn’t get too many calls on them, but there again a dryer (non-self-condensing) is hardly a technical challenge to most designers. Apart from that chuffin’ Crosslee thing with the reset on the back, most irritating on the integrated version, but I digress. Components fail, it’s a fact of life and that’ll be that it may take two minutes or twenty years but it will happen beyond doubt with any electro-mechanical device. The trick is what is reffered to as the “mean time till failure”, i.e. how long the design life is and, on most budget components, the MTTF is lower than on better specc’d bits. The problem is, being engineers we often expect components to be over-engineered to avoid failure for as long as possible.
As I often remind the customer that gets a bit shirty, you could walk out tomorrow and buy a £60,000 Mercedes Benz and it could also break within week, what sort of tolerance for failure do you expect from a £2-500 washer (or whatever). And, Mercedes won’t give you an automatic exchange for a new one just because you demand it either! That usually shines a bit of perspective on it for them but it holds true for the trade as well, but I have to admit I side with the manufacturers and retailers on this kind of issue.
As for the specific case in point, it failed, caps do fail from time to time and sometimes with some spectacular results but there’s no sense in scaring the customer into thinking a fire was imminent IMO. Replace it, hope it’s not an ongoing problem (which it most likely isn’t) and get paid for the work. The only time I ever recommend an exchange is when I feel it is justified, either by the nature of the failure or the politics of the situation. As any Service Force or ex-Zanussi agent here will tell you that comes from a good education in dealing with customers and failures. 😉
K.
The other thing is that unless you want to try to get business from the internet, barring specific searches like the one Alex outlined, then web optimisation is pretty much useless to you especially to a small localised business. Most repairers I think should have a site, even if it is only a single page with contact details and what they do on it, but real optimisation for searching either costs loads of time or money, often both as far as I can see. Also, unless you are etailing to see a sizeable return, most small business could spend the money better elsewhere I feel.
The only way around that is solely down to content and actually having the information or products on the site that the surfer was actually looking for in the first place. Otherwise, it’s just another 30 second, or less, visit.
K.
Well I recieved a call about this tonight (thanks for the information ;)) and there has been indeed a boardroom showdown from what I can gather. Just what’s gone off is unclear in its entirety at this stage but I am assured that there is no potential danger to any members financially from a reliable source.
A case of “resignations” and champagne all round perhaps?
I have no further information on the meeting at this point in time other than it was apparently called by Mr Sewell and not the NESN board.
K.
Hiya,
Without a model number you may well struggle badly to get anywhere. If there is a model number on there it will be underneath the hob on a rating plate, if you can get all the information on that it may well help a lot.
Atag, like others, manufacture/d a plethora of models and it will probably be near impossible to help without any information.
Your best bet may well be Bradshaws who are the UK agent for Atag currently, you should find a link for them in the “Web Links” section of the site.
Hope that helps.
K.
Well I hope none of us are owed any substantial monies by NESN? 😕
It appears that one of two things is about to happen, either the boardroom battle for control is about to spill onto the streets or they’re gonna tell everyone that they’re bust. I can think of no other reasoning for the upcoming meeting being held, the importance thrust upon it and the urgency, especially with such short notice.
Unless of course we’re going to get a bit of both…
Sewell pulls out leaving a big hole in the financing of NESN, i.e. he sinks it.
K.
Re: Electrue/NESN
Well now…
From an email to NESN agents this afternoon that was sent to me it would appear that there has been an emergency national meeting fro the 9th of June and an urgent request has been made from Peter Sewell for all white and browngoods members to attend. Very short notice indeed.
The language in the email is a bit odd to me as well saying that board changes could have a major effect on the agent’s businesses, it strikes me that its a bit strange that board changes could have such an effect unless there’s something else afoot?
Rumour has it that Jonathan Trubshaw and Peter Sewell were asked to resign at a recent board meeting, but that’s purely a rumour but I guess most of you could see the possible implications in that.
Interesting timing that this meeting is being held just as a payment is due and if I were owed money (which I am, but that’s another story :() I should be very, very nervous about now.
K.
Yeah Valvo, many of them actually only hit the top speed for the final few seconds or so of the spin cycle IME. Plus you have to remember that spinning at a high speed uses more energy, remember the energy labelling and efficiency that they’re all going for? Then add the stability, the machine has to try to sort the wash and not go into an “out-of-balance” situation as well and all these factors add to the time it takes.
Quite often I’ve seen machine that ramp up to about a 500rpm spin, drop back, ramp up and then finally go into a full spin for 30 seconds or so.
When a certain manufacturer originally started making en-masse 1000 and 1200 machine we used to have a good chuckle at people buying them as they actually spun worse than the far cheaper 800’s as the 800 spin was achieved totally mechanically and lasted a lot longer so it was actually superior.
K.
Martin, if you think the RF frequencies are crowded now, just give a year of two till even the current technologies become mainstream. 🙁
Already commercial broadcasters and users are whining about crowded airwaves.
K.
That is a totally outrageous price!!!
Dear God, Meile bits are better value than that Servis and GBDAR should be ashamed to ask for that much money for a bit of plastic that, two years ago, cost us under £1.30! Next we’ll be writing off appliances for a broken door handle, crazy.
K.
Google holds all the answers! 😉
No I don’t have all the gadgets, don’t need them and a lot of them are pants or a waste of time anyway. But automatic gates on the drive woul dbe nice 😀 over £1000 to do it though! 🙁
X10 is a powerline control system for mains operated devices, like lamps, in its simplest form.
There is a connection to this industry though as we are starting to see internet enabled appiliances as well as robotics being employed in the industry which has a very strong crossover into other home control and automation technology that’s already out there. It would appear that the manufacturers of whitegoods have cottoned on to the fact that this is a burgeoning and possibly very lucrative market as the technology becomes more available to the normal man in the street.
And, if you think about it we’ve been going down that road for at least 30 years or more, after all, what is a washer or a dishwasher but the automation of a traditionally manual chore?
To illustrate how simply it can start a question often asked is, why can I not press a keyfob and have the house arm and lock or disarm and lock just like my car does? Simple ideas like that we’ve been using for years on cars and accept it as the norm now, homes will eventually go the same way I think it’s only a matter of time.
K.
Re: Use Of Funds
There is no real slow down in the forum or the posts in it Martin, in fact quite the opposite. The average posts per day (remember this is taken since the site went live) has risen from about 4 a day at Christmas time to 8.48 per day, I just checked it. P45 simply didn’t know that members of the public could hold an account and, even if it were trade only, there’s still about 250-300 members when you remove the public. Predomenantly the site is used and viewed by the trade.
Due to time constraints we don’t check the IP addresses of visitors too much these days, there’s just too many to track, but we are all too aware of Whirlpool, Maytag and many others within the industry watching the site but without proper access or even holding an account.
The number of trade members continues to increase albeit at a slower pace. The number of general public members also continues to increase, faster than those requesting trade access and there are rather a few there I suspect are trade customers but have not requested access to the forums. 🙄
The notion of blocking the tech stuff off to non-members is a thorny issue and one that I, personally, don’t think is needed at this time and I believe it would do more harm than good to institute. That’s not too say that if the time was right for it I wouldn’t consider it seriously it’s saying I don’t think it’s the right time for such a change, nor do I know if it ever would be right to do so.
Free usage of the site is all very well and good and I don’t intend to change that, but any additional things that we get up to will not be done for free as, quite simply, none of us can afford to work for nothing. UKW was started as a hobby more than anything else to get people talking but, more importantly, thinking and sharing ideas and experience. We’ve moved on from there and the whole idea is evolving, what into I don’t quite know yet though. 😕
The percieved slow down in posts is just that, percieved, the reason is simple; there’s nothing major going on in the contract side to inspire the posts.
As for taking money to run the site, I have always maintained that if it reaches the stage where it adversly affects my business and therefore my ability to earn then I am faced with two choices. I either employ someone to remove much of my daily chores from me or I step back a bit from UKW. Sadly, last month it did affect my business and that’s the reason I’ve been a bit quieter as I have to get the business back on track before applying more time to UKW.
As for my home life, yes it has affected it adversly to a degree and something I’ve also had to address this past month or so. So much so that I will not be attending the upcoming DASA meeting as I owe my family a lot of time at this point and they have to come first I’m afraid.
Running UKW for both Dave and myself is a pleasure to do or we wouldn’t be doing it and I have an enormous respect for those that are willing to invest their time, knowledge and information on the site. Hopefully it pays off and all the members get something back from it, if that happens then it has served its purpose to a large degree.
K.
