How Things Are Made

2026-06-19

Writing in my phone because the kids are asleep and I don’t want to risk waking them getting my laptop. Please excuse any phone related errors.

We have a whole house water filter system, the previous owners installed it and it works great. Once a quarter (3 months) I need to change the sediment filter, I have a calendar reminder because that is the only way I remember anything. The first time I tried to replace it, I didn’t know I needed to depressurize the system and I broke the crappy plastic housing wrench it came with. Sadly I bought another one, watched a few videos and googled some things, thank god for the helpful part of the internet, and I figured our the error in my ways. With the new plastic wrench I managed to get off the filter housing, replace the filter, en voila. Man I don’t know how to spell that word.

Fast forward to now it is like the fourth time changing the filter and the new plastic wrench that I bought, broke. I did everything right, I depressurized the system, I put in food safe silicone to grease the threads, still it snapped. And so I had two options, buy more plastic wrenches or pay more for a stainless steel one. And I went for the stainless steel, I used it today and it worked great.

And I know we live in a very modern age with lots of materials and special plastics. Silicone, plastic, metal, composite, etc. But what the wrench has reminded me is that manufacturing still matters and materials still matter. Having a steel wrench will always be better than a plastic one for the majority of applications and especially for my tight filter housing. I like my clothes to mostly be made of cotton and my food to be made of food. I like cups made of glass and furniture made of wood, I also prefer chairs and tables made of wood. I like wooden spoons and silicone spatulas. I like metal or wooden chopsticks.

I know there are limits to this, my dining table isn’t made of oak, it won’t last a lifetime, but it is some composite wood that will hopefully last dozens of years. And so there will always be trade offs but I will lean towards slightly more expensive and slightly more well made.

One other thing that is kind of related is name brand. It depends on the item but I do like electronics and cars from highly reputable companies if possible. I also like things that are easy to maintain or buy parts for. Our two latest cars are a Honda and a Mazda, one made in Japan and I think one made in the US (some of the larger Japanese cars are made in the US). I picked a Zojirushi rice cooker, our American hot water heater for tea broke and I want to get a Japanese one. I like Kirkland for a lot of clothes, sometimes I get darn tough socks, for shoes I car about the brand my go to for sandals is Birkinstocks. I guess the point of this is that not only do the materials matter but also the people making them matter, I try to buy from high reputation companies and places if possible. Not always but I try.

That is all, is there anything in particular that you care about the materials or the brand for? Do you always buy the cheapest?

-Gary