Major Appliances then and now – is it worth repairing?

The electrical appliances of the past were considered family assets. When Grandma bought a television set, she expected it to serve her for decades, eventually bequeathing it to one of her lucky children. Accordingly, she guarded it with all vigilance, careful that the grandchildren would not play with the buttons, or even leave fingerprints on it, that they would not spoil it, God forbid, that she would not have to send it to a technician.

Major Appliances have lost their past significance

It’s a bit funny to remember the emotional relationship that people like her once gave to household appliances. Today, even in advance, TVs built to survive for so many years are rare. When the device breaks down, let’s face it, the frustration is always mixed with a small sense of satisfaction, because in our hearts we’ve been longing for a better and more sophisticated one for a long time, but we’ve always hesitated to invest the money in an upgrade. And here, congratulations, the reason was given. And so, instead of looking for a technician to fix, we access the Internet to find the new model that will turn us on – bigger, more sophisticated, more beautiful, and usually more expensive.

When a repair is better than an upgrade

The enthusiasm of purchasing a new product is part of the consumer culture that we happily adopted. But what if in the same television or in a major kitchen appliance device that was destroyed, a small fuse just burned out, the simple and cheap replacement of which could give it a few more years of life, and save us an immediate expense of several thousand dollars? So it’s true, today we won’t repair a mixer or a hair dryer like grandma did, but there are still quite a few devices in our home whose maintenance and repair can significantly extend the time they will serve us, and anyway a new alternative will not give us a real upgrade of the required operation. If you did not fall for a random “cheap” technician, but for a reliable appliance repair professional who will give you good and decent service, you can save a lot of money. Here are some examples:

 

Refrigerator

One of the essential electrical devices in the house, the breakdown of which requires an immediate solution. If it is an old and uneconomical refrigerator, then replacing it will indeed be the wise step, but if it is a relatively new device, with good sealing and modest electricity consumption, its repair will probably be definitely worthwhile. The common faults are usually in the gas system which requires filling, the engine or temperature regulation in it. A refrigerator repair may cost about one or two hundred dollars compared to buying a new refrigerator which will amount to a couple of thousands.

 

Baking Oven or Stove

One of the simplest devices at home. When we purchase it, the main expense is on the large and heavy tool itself, and not on the technology inherent in it, which is often very simple. If the oven itself is physically broken, like fell down and broke, we are indeed faced with a problem whose solution is to purchase an alternative, but wait… who has actually ever managed to drop and break a whole oven? After all, the malfunctions in it occur in the heating elements and buttons – cheap and simple elements to replace, which will immediately return it to its glory days, and save the need to replace it with a new one, in which the cakes baked and roastbeefs roasted in it will have exactly the same taste as they came out of the previous one.

 

Washing machine

Like the oven, it is also nothing more than a simple tool, which by buying it we pay for a lot of metal, but little technological sophistication. The most common problem is a blockage in the pipes or the pump, which the technician will fix even without  the need for new parts, which will reduce the cost of your washer repair to the cost of the visit alone. Other common faults are in the pump and the heating element, parts that cost only about 50 to 200 dollars. In most cases, the cost of repair will amount to one tenth or one fifth of replacing the machine. If indeed the fault is in the engine itself or the price quote for repairing the fault is around 300-500 dollars, then it would be worthwhile to consider purchasing a new machine.

 

Dryer

It is also one of the “stupidest” devices in the house, the breakdown of which results from a malfunction in very simple systems. The dryer includes a heating element, a control panel and a motor. The belt that rotates the drum is the most prone to malfunctions, but its replacement is simple and cheap. Malfunctions in the heating body and the thermostat are also common, they are also relatively cheap to repair or replace. One thing is certain, and that is that if you buy a new dryer, you will not feel any change or upgrade in its operation compared to the previous one; In both cases, the clothes came out dry to the exact same extent, so the dryer is definitely worth repairing, and do not rush to buy a new one.