The truly "profound" IQ tax is not simply to trick people into buying a certain product. Instead, we sell the product to you at a low price, and then slowly charge you follow-up fees - it doesn't feel expensive when you buy it, but the more you use it, the more you feel it is too much. By the time he reacted, he had already given a lot of money to others.
The six types of home appliances I will talk about today are products that are not expensive but have extremely high usage costs. I can’t say that they are completely useless. I can only say that if you don’t have enough wealth, it is recommended to choose carefully.
[Ⅰ] Air purifier
Air purifiers are cheap and only cost a few hundred yuan; more expensive ones are only two to three thousand yuan. It can be said that "everyone can afford it", but not everyone can afford it.
The air purifier is able to purify the air thanks to the filter element inside. The air passing through this layer of filter element is like passing through a sieve, leaving all pollutants on the filter element.
Therefore, the filter element is a consumable item: if the filter element is not replaced regularly, the filter element will become dirty. When the air passes through a dirty filter element, it will not only not be purified, but will also cause secondary pollution.
Generally, the filter element needs to be replaced every six months, and the cheapest filter element costs two to three hundred yuan. For an air purifier that costs thousands of dollars, the optical filter element costs several hundred or even more than a thousand dollars. Or put it this way: the annual consumables cost of an air purifier is almost the same as the purchase cost of a new machine.
[Ⅱ] Water purifier
There are many kinds of water purifiers, and some are kitchen-end water purifiers hidden under the cabinets. There are also integrated water purification and heating machines placed on the countertop.
The cost of using a water purifier mainly comes from two aspects:
The first is the water fee. The water purifier will discharge wastewater during the filtration process. The current water purifier has been upgraded, and the wastewater ratio is basically 2:1 (it was 1:1 back then). This is equivalent to throwing away 1 liter of water for every 2 liters of water you drink.
The second is the filter element, which, like the air purifier, needs to be replaced regularly. Fortunately, the price of filter elements has come down now, but it still costs a few hundred yuan a year.
There are many ways to obtain pure water, and water purifiers are the most expensive one. The advantage of buying a water purifier is convenience. If your purpose is not convenience, you can buy bottled water or go to the water vending machine in the community to get water.
[Ⅲ] Integrated washing and drying machine
If you buy a small wall-mounted washing machine, then choose an integrated washing and drying machine. Anyway, the machine is small, so I usually only wash underwear and socks, so it doesn’t matter. But if it is a large washing machine, it is not recommended to choose an all-in-one washer and dryer.
The main reason is that most integrated washing and drying machines use condensation drying:
The drying effect is poor, the drying speed is slow, and the drying power consumption is high. It takes seven or eight hours to dry one piece of clothing. It also needs to be equipped with more than ten kilowatt hours of electricity.
If you really need to dry clothes, you can buy an independent clothes dryer. Most independent clothes dryers are of the heat pump type. Although they are still drying, they are much better than the washer-dryer in terms of effect and cost.
【Ⅳ】Electric clothes drying pole
Some electric clothes drying poles also have drying functions. I advise you not to buy them - if you buy them, don't use this function. The power consumption of an electric clothes drying rod is even higher than that of an all-in-one washer and dryer.
Clothes drying pole is actually a hair dryer installed on the top. Use hot air to dry the clothes: the drying speed can be imagined.
The drying power of the clothes drying pole is generally about 1000W. If it is turned on continuously for 12 hours, it will consume 12 kilowatt hours of electricity.
And because the electric clothes drying pole is an open dryer, it is greatly affected by environmental factors. Therefore, the drying speed will be much slower than that of an all-in-one washer and dryer or an independent dryer. It takes at least ten hours to dry a piece of clothing.
[Ⅴ] Zero cold water gas water heater
Zero cold water gas water heater can achieve "hot water flows out when you open the faucet". Do you think you can save water by not putting in cold water in advance?
But the fact is: the zero cold water gas water heater circulates the cold water in the hot water pipe to the water heater for reheating. This means that even if we are not using hot water, the water heater will continue to boil water.
The water bill is saved, but the gas bill is doubled. And because the water heater is always working, it will also produce huge noise - you can ask how many users who have bought zero cold water gas water heaters will not turn on the "zero cold water" function even once a year.
If your home is not particularly large and the distance from the water heater to the water point is no more than 15m, there is no need to buy a zero-cold water gas water heater.
【Ⅵ】Solar electric water heater
This is a pitfall that I encountered recently: a wall-mounted solar water heater is now popular, which is to hang the solar panels outside the balcony. There is an inner tank similar to an electric water heater in the room, and pipes are used to connect the solar panels and the inner tank, claiming that it can be heated by solar energy.
What I didn't expect is that this kind of solar water heater is completely different from the traditional one placed on the roof of the building. The thermal conductivity efficiency of wall-mounted solar water heaters is very low. Today our local temperature is close to 40°C. Solar energy alone can only heat water to about 40°C.
Fortunately, it also has an electric heating function, so I usually use it as an electric water heater. However, unlike electric water heaters, its energy efficiency is extremely low - high power consumption, poor thermal insulation, and extremely low hot water output rate!
In the final analysis, I bought an electric water heater with very low efficiency at a high price.
