Warning: This is a bit of a rant....

I would not accuse you of being a Luddite, but I do question your understanding of basic care-and-feeding of appliances. You admit to doing tear-down maintenance of a microwave oven (surely not in any operations manual), yet will not admit to the most basic understanding of the car-and-feeding of other, larger appliances.

Sure, our range has as much computing power as the Space Shuttle ((but so did the Commodore VIC20), and as such probably should be on a circuit protected by a surge-suppressor (and it is). It is now 12 years old and doing fine. The oven gets used very nearly every day, so it does need cleaning (maintenance), and every so often, beyond just the self-clean feature - and that is not in any manual either.

As to the clothes washer - cleaning the sump quarterly is no big deal, is it? If the alternative is replacing the pump, probably annually (with heavy use)? Now:

a) The typical old-style top-loader used between 35 and 45 gallons of water per full load. The average washer is used 400 times per year (family of four(4)). Splitting the difference, that is 16,000 gallons of water per year. That is 44 gallons per day, just for washing clothes. Which is, typically, also heated at least in part.
b) The typical old-style top-loader leaves between one and two gallons of water behind in a full load. Which must be dried, either mechanically or on a clothes line. How many here use a clothes line? For everything?
c) Our LG uses five (5) gallons of water on the heavy-duty cycle, and seven (7) if we use a pre-rinse (never needed to, at least so far). Giving it a 8:1 advantage over the top-loader. and a 3:1 advantage over even the most efficient modern top-loader. Making that occasional vinegar douche not so horrible - well, we use chlorine bleach often enough that the vinegar is rarely needed.

At our summer house, where we both make and dispose of our water on-site, and we are on a Class A trout-stream, water consumption is a huge factor. Just below functionality, but above first-cost and even maintenance - although so far, that has been minimal. We are also exceedingly careful of the materials we use such as soaps and detergents.

(Definition of Class A Waters:
Streams that support a population of naturally produced trout of sufficient size and abundance to support a long-term and rewarding sport fishery.
Management:
Natural reproduction, wild populations with no stocking)

And learning what works over the last 30 years upstate has translated into choices we make "at home" to keep to a more gentle footprint - OK, not the "American Way" but so what?

It is a matter of choices made. But it does gripe me when individuals blame the object rather than the caretaker of that object for its failure after years of negligence.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA