Emili And The Family Toaster

Emili came with her young family and a broken toaster, with a lever that didn’t lock to toast anymore.

When Emili came in with this quite old metal toaster we thought this is a quick fix. Old machines are usually quite good to repair – less digital parts and a lot of the parts are simply bigger than they are today. So she started by reproducing the problem. We had no bread but we could still see that the toaster lever would not lock in place when pressed down, but did generate heat if you pressed it down continuously.

The next step, after not really knowing what was causing the problem, she opened it up. It had a quite simple construction – very few screws and almost no plastic – which is often a risk factor when opening things as it easily breaks.

We looked at the toaster together, cleaned it and it seemed to work when it was disabled; but as soon as we put it together again, it wouldn’t work. After 2 times of unscrewing and putting it together we found the reason. The wheel for picking the toasting duration got changed by accident, something that is possible to fix without opening the device. The result was that the toaster wouldn’t even toast when it was set for the longest time. We calibrated the toaster together and tested it. Working!

Emili could take home the once again working toaster with the knowledge of how to fix such problems with her toaster at home by herself.