Most small, consumer appliances are designed to wear out, or stop being useful in a very short time. These appliances are difficult and expensive to repair, so consumers are trained to dump and replace. This is often called planned obsolescence, and it not only wastes consumer’s money it also uses up valuable resources, chokes our landfills, and has big environmental implications.
Our Message: Don’t Dump Your Baratza – Fix It!
We’ve purposefully designed Baratza grinders to be maintained like commercial grinders. With regular cleaning, maintenance, repair, and even rebuilds our grinders can give an excellent, accurate grind for many years. To build a serviceable grinder costs a little more, but we feel it is money well spent, that pays dividends for years to come. To make this easy and affordable, Baratza has:
- Releasable snaps and simple screws vs. one-time snaps or glue; this ensures easy accessibility to the guts of the grinder, even for end users, without need for special tools.
- A team of extremely knowledgeable and approachable staff, offering email and phone support for troubleshooting and fixing grinders.
- Developed clear and concise, troubleshooting guides, instructions, and videos to help with repair and rebuilds. All are openly available through our website.
- Inexpensive parts for repairing grinders, easily available through our website, 24/7.
- Developed and posted exploded views of all our grinders (pdf example)
- A reasonably priced repair service, for those not able or willing to make repairs themselves.
- Made upgrades and accessories backward compatible, to existing grinders, whenever possible
- A Refurbished Grinder program. Pre-owned grinders are fixed, cleaned, and updated to the newest parts, and come with a 1 year warranty. The program offers the twofold effect of minimizing waste plus making our grinders more accessible to people with budget constraints.
As people learn of Baratza’s commitment to keeping our products out of landfills, they are often surprised at why a company would spend so much effort extending the life of their products. By the end of the conversation all agree (and see) that the best way to encourage people to buy another Baratza grinder is to maximize the VALUE of ownership. We do this by doing all we can to keep our grinders in service for many years to come. When people decide to upgrade or buy a second grinder, we want to make sure it is not because their old Baratza grinder died, rather they are choosing to place their trust and dollars in a company that stands behind their products long after the customer walks out the door.
“I just wanted to express my appreciation for the ability you’ve given me to easily repair my older grinder. The grinder no longer adjusted due to a build up of debris, and then failure of the plastic adjustment ring under stress. However, I was able to get the parts from your website and find a clear PDF that detailed the replacement instructions. It is really nice to be able to fix a small broken part these days than throw out a solid working device. Thanks for the quality design, super support and dedication to the life cycle of your products.”
Bob Bowser
“I have a Virtuoso grinder that I’ve been using for about 4 years. It’s done great service. Then it stopped working and I made things worse with my poking and prodding. Then… I found your service FAQ and manuals. 15 minutes later it was working again, cleaned and good as new! I just wanted to say thank you for building a serviceable product AND for posting the directions to service it. I wish that all companies would do this. THANK YOU!”
David Coode