On June 20th, Jeff Bucher, General Manager of Dramm Corporation sent me via UPS 2 day air a box of 4 new Dramm Rain Wands (thank you Jeff).
They arrived on June 22nd — 3 touchnflow wands of the same design as the ones that failed, and 1 colormark wand with a ball valve to shut off the water. Based on Jeff’s explanation of galvanic corrosion in his comment to my original post on Dramm & his follow-up email to me, I don’t expect the 3 touchnflow wands to make it through a full season of normal use (currently we are only using one of the new touchnflow wands).
I’m predicting that the colormark wand with the ball valve to be the superior product that will last multiple seasons. I haven’t had the time to give Jeff a call, but I have his business card and am thinking about calling him to ask why Dramm Corporation manufactures the touchnflow wand design when the company knows it is prone to fail. From my perspective it seems analogous to manufacturing a product with an intentionally engineered lifespan that keeps the consumers buying new product each season…until they get irritated and buy a Chinese-made watering wand to see how it holds up compared to an American-made Dramm (like I have done).
It’s unfortunate, but this country has collectively forgotten what engineering high quality made-to-last products means (here’s a hint — customer loyalty, larger market share, and being able to charge a price premium). Instead this country has become a nation that expects short product lifespans, that is content to throw everything away and buy something new at the drop of a hat, all the while, never asking why a $30 watering wand didn’t last.
I had grandparents that lived through the Great Depression and my European in-laws lived through the economic devastation caused by WWII, so in my family there is a deep familial understanding of taking care of things and buying products that last. I wonder if there is anyone at Dramm that had an upbringing that put a similar value on high quality built to last products? If there is, why aren’t these the people running the company and proactively eliminating product lines that have been proven to quickly fail with normal use?
We may not be in an economic depression now, but one thing is clear — the fallout from the 2008/09 recession has a lot more Americans thinking about the issue of manufacturing quality and how to more carefully spend their limited financial resources. I hope that Dramm Corporation sees the proverbial writing on the wall and chooses to pull substandard products from the market before more of their customers vote with their wallets and buy a product from another company.
