Common household appliances. - File

With home appliances readily available all around, many persons are drawn to the newest and shiniest items, with the most exciting gadgetry.

And when the new comes in the old often goes in very unceremonious manner, being dumped totally, as its faults suddenly seem unbearable, even for it to be passed on to someone else.

However, it is almost always a case of throwing away money as there is a salvage value in most major appliances. As Dennis, who advertises for old appliances regularly, puts it, "if is even the iron, man who plate car and do certain heavy bodywork, the metal have a value to them".

However, before even getting to that final scrapdown stage, there are the components of the appliance itself. "The door, the shelf, the hinges, the motor, all of those have use," Dennis said. "You might not want to fix up everything, because it will cost, but to somebody like me who put them together, it not finish when you think it done."

It is not only the large appliances that have a life after the time they have spent in the homes. Carolyn found that out when she put two old fans that she considered useless outside the gate of her Kingston 19 home. She expected that the garbage collectors would see something valuable in them when they came for the weekly pick-up.

They did not last that long.

"They were not there for even the whole day. A car passed by, stopped, reversed, a man got out, took them up, put them in the trunk and moved off. That was it," she said. "It just goes to show that what we think is useless has use to someone else. As they say, one man's treasure is another man's rubbish."

And although Dennis makes a living from buying what many others consider rubbish, he cautions against throwing out appliances just because they can afford something new. "A fridge is supposed to last up to 20, 25 years. Sometimes a little thing goes wrong, like a leak, and people get fed up, especially since advertising make you know how quick and easy you can hold on to something new. But it can fix and serve you good same way nuff a the time," he said.

'Cool' cash from old freezer

When 45-year-old Patrice decided to pack up her meat and light grocery sales business in Moneague, St. Ann, she had to decide how to dispose of everything. So the container that housed the shop went, as did the shelving and showcases, the current stock going down through natural sales as there was no replacement made.

This included, of course, the meat, and the stock in the freezer gradually went down. Eventually, that left the freezer itself.

Servicing

It was an old freezer which needed servicing regularly and Patrice was thinking of getting rid of it the tried and proven way, of stripping out the motor and then dumping the shell.

That is, until the person who serviced the freezer asked what she was planning to do with it and was surprised when he heard of the plans.

"He offered to buy it same time," she said. It was not a huge sum, a long association being taken into consideration when the price was being negotiated, but every bit of money at the closing of the business counted for a lot.

And he was not planning to scrap it.

"Him say plenty of the time them don't make freezer like that anymore, because the motor strong and the insulation thicker, so him fix it up and sell it back," she said.

"Plenty time people buy new things and them only pretty," Patrice said.