Ask HN: What are household items that can be repaired but people often replace?

Instead of disposable plastic razors (Schick, Gilette, etc.) I recommend getting a safety razor and a big pack of blades (I use Merkur). You will save yourself thousands of dollars over the course of a lifetime - and avoid generating a ton of waste. Maintenance is pretty much just cleaning the razor with vinegar every few weeks.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Safety_razor" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Safety_razor</a><p>If you have the time&#x2F;desire for it, a straight razor is also an option. It takes much more expertise and time, though, so I would start with the safety razor first.

I&#x27;ve dabbled in this a lot, and I don&#x27;t consider myself a very handy person.<p>Cell phones are much more repairable than they seem. You can replace screens, batteries, USB ports, antennas, etc. A new battery and factory reset makes it seem completely new.<p>Laptops can often be repaired or upgraded, especially earlier MacBooks or current Dells. I&#x27;ve upgraded my old (2014?) MacBook pro and used it for daily use for years. You can even get NMVe converters and I&#x27;ve thought about making a usbC charge plug for them.<p>I&#x27;ve heard that swapping out the capacitors in TVs can bring them back to life. Haven&#x27;t tried it.<p>I&#x27;ve brought baby equipment back to life, fixed janky strollers with 3d printed parts.<p>Try just repainting furniture. It&#x27;ll feel new and costs maybe 10 bucks. Get some plastic wood to fill in cracks or holes, and you won&#x27;t believe how much better things look.<p>I once got a baby high chair for free because they sent two left legs instead of right and left. I drilled out the appropriate screw holes to convert one to the right side and filled in the existing holes. That saved enough money to pay for the drill press I used.<p>Ifixit.com has become one of my favorite sites.

Breville coffee grinders. The company does not sell parts, and so 3D printing was necessary to bridge the gap when mine broke a few years back. It ended up being one of the small victories over entropy for me, and I wrote it all up on iFixit here[0]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ifixit.com&#x2F;Guide&#x2F;BCG800XL+Grinder+Jamming+due+to+Worn+Impeller&#x2F;62905" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ifixit.com&#x2F;Guide&#x2F;BCG800XL+Grinder+Jamming+due+to...</a>

I&#x27;ve seen two people replace dishwashers because the power cord wasn&#x27;t connected well and failed. They don&#x27;t include a power cord with the appliance, here; you buy your own and wire it up yourself, or the installers do it for most people I guess.<p>So when this hurried connection made in an awkward place turns out to have been poor and breaks after a few years; &quot;the dishwasher is broken&quot; and a repair shop charges half the cost of a new one to come out and look at it... It made sense to these folks to just go ahead and get a new one without the stains etc.<p>Lots of electronics get that treatment, its too complicated to think about what&#x27;s inside it; so the whole unit is either working or broken but not considered repairable.

I watched my dad do handy things when growing up so I have a default mindset that anything can be fixed or at least jury rigged.<p>Today even though most such repair is not worth my time <i>per se</i>, I want my son to grow up seeing dad figure out how to do stuff so he also expects himself to be able to figure out whatever comes up.

Refrigerators can usually be repaired for much less than the cost of replacing it.<p>Same goes for washing machines&#x2F;drying machines, or pretty much any other large appliance.<p>I&#x27;ve seen people throw out perfectly good soft furnishings simply because they didn&#x27;t know how to clean them, and let outdoor furniture go to rot because they didn&#x27;t bother treating the wood every year or so by oiling it.<p>Cookware also often goes to waste due to neglect or lack of maintenance - I know a few people who buy pretty expensive kitchen knives and never sharpen them, instead replacing them.

If you are on the verge of throwing something away, better to visit a repair café! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.repaircafe.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.repaircafe.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;</a>

I had an appliance repair person come out to fix our dishwasher ($$$), he told me this would happen again if I repaired it, and I should just buy a new one. Instead, I bought the component online and DIY&#x27;d the fix instead of paying him another $200. The component failed a month later, just like he predicted. I bought a new dishwasher, after spending hundreds to repair my existing one.<p>Moral of the story: hubris is expensive.

PSA if you&#x27;re thinking of repairing appliances that run on mains power supply:<p>A lot of you might be comfortable tinkering with breadboards or Arduinos and hobbyist electronics, but mains electricity can be lethal. Please consider hiring a professional electrician before you start replacing failing components or power cables if you&#x27;re unsure about what you&#x27;re doing.<p>Stay safe :)

Almost everything. The problem is figuring out what is broken.<p>There are some things that require extra attention, like a microwave oven

As others have said, a lot of things are just thrown out even though material cost-wise they can be cheaply repaired. The issue usually comes down to effort and time to do it versus just getting a new one, if you have no skills doing the necessary repairs then having a skilled professional do it for you is often not worth it.<p>However, if you do have skills and tools to do it, you may be surprised how much crazy money you can save by just maintaining the same product way past its expected lifetime. Especially true for various electronic appliances that often break down because some wire has gone bad somewhere.

I&#x27;ve repaired multiple gas stoves for people. The SiC element which heats up to ignite the gas fails over time. My neighbors were just replacing their stove every time this happened until I showed them how to do it.

Some relatively simple things I&#x27;ve repaired around our apartment. Not all of these people would <i>replace</i>, but they might call a professional when it&#x27;s quicker and cheaper to DIY:<p>* Top-loading washing machine. If it spins really loudly, or stops spinning, pop off the front panel and check the belt. Ours had just slipped off. Just make sure you get it really tight when reattaching--I had to redo it a couple times until it stayed on. As a bonus, I found a bunch of clothes that had fallen inside, including my wife&#x27;s favorite skirt :-)<p>* iPhone battery replacement. Just bought the iFixit toolkit and followed their guide, it was pretty simple. Extended the life of my 6s+ another year (so far).<p>* Clothes repairs are pretty simple. I&#x27;ve patched some pretty big holes in jeans with new fabric which is a bit more involved, but things like sewing buttons back on or patching small holes is really simple, just look up mending stitches online. If you don&#x27;t have the right color of thread, you can use hidden stitches, or go for a kintsugi approach and make the mending visible which can be pretty stylish.<p>* Stove burner covers -- these literally pop out and are (usually) dishwasher safe.<p>* Dishwasher cleaning -- this isn&#x27;t hard, but can be pretty gross if it hasn&#x27;t been done in awhile. Look up a youtube video, take all the parts out and thoroughly scrub everywhere you can, then run a cycle with a couple dishwasher cleaning tabs. Night and day cleaning difference for old dishwashers.

Personally I tend to (try and) repair <i>anything</i>, but lately (a few years) finding suitable spare parts has become much more difficult, simply the &quot;manufacturers&quot; do not provide them (or stops providing them after a short time since the new model is put in commerce) and - unless it is for some reasons a very popular model&#x2F;device&#x2F;appliance - third parties do not manufacture them (too low volume to be profitable).<p>Or the few people that have these spares available try to sell them as if they were gold.<p>Right now I have a washer that needs its shock absorbing supports replaced, two supports are needed, I found them at 45 Euro each (other more common models are sold for anything between 5 and 15 Euro) + shipping.<p>Now on a simple washer that I can buy new for 400 Euro, and that is a few years old, spending 20-40 Euro for spares (not considering my time) makes sense, spending some 100 Euro makes very little.<p>Something else that few people consider is that the appliance you replace in the best case is (partially) recycled, in the worse ends up in a dumpster somehwere, while if you manage to repair it only the small parts that you replace are waste.

Washing machine and dryer. Our last pair had troubles. I did open both up and attempt to diagnose and repair. I got them going but both needed a part replaced, dryer it was the belt and washer was having issues with the pump.<p>The problem is that it is hard to get the parts and it takes time, it&#x27;s not guaranteed to be a fix, and the local repair people have a 2+ week wait to come and look. It&#x27;s much more convenient to just buy replacement appliances. I&#x27;m comfortable fixing things but I don&#x27;t always have time and that time would be further stretched having to go to the laundry place in town.<p>We bought replacements, got the repair company to fix up the old machines and sold them on.<p>Parts is the biggest issue. Our coffee machine needed repair. I would have loved to fix it myself but the parts are really expensive so I couldn&#x27;t experiment... I tried replacing the tubes and a valve. In the end it needed a pump. The repair place that sees loads of them can just stock some spare pumps but I&#x27;d end up paying more than a new machine to do that... and the shipping on parts, it was stupidly expensive.

Our 65&quot; Samsung faded out (blue&#x2F;purple). Just needed to replace the white back-light LEDs. $60 in parts. About 1h labour (mine).

Slightly unrelated, but I recently had to use an unexpected sentence: “my microwave is not booting”.<p>More related: the service person who looked at it charged about half of what a new one would have cost, so I understand how the economics often lean towards just replacing stuff.

Almost everything can be repair, or makes economic sense to repair.<p>I think the key point in your question is &#x27;easy to repair&#x27; and that depends on your skills, knowledge, and whether you feel comfy around electrical stuff if that&#x27;s the case.

Components for larger devices such as washer, dryers, etc. the machines often provide error code. Take the error code to the manual and see if you can identify the component.<p>I tend to try and fix everything myself OR if I hire someone I make them teach me how to do it (and pay them a bit more cash). I’ve rebuilt faucets (usually a gasket fails, that’s like $5 to replace).<p>Biggest repair was a dryer where the toroidal transformer failed on a 40-50 year old washer (it’s a component used in motors). I found the manual on eBay for a few bucks, got the specs of the transformer, bought a new on and rigged it up. Worked, still works.

My proud repairs include:<p>A Samsung washer that would not detect that the door was closed. Bypassed it with a paper clip. You can open the door while the clothes are tumbling but I just don’t do that and all is good.<p>Many washers actually, bearings, belts, shocks.<p>A Hamilton beach electric kettle. To turn on you push down on a little lever that stays engaged until a bimetal gets hot and clicks off. It wouldn’t stay engaged. Disassembled and bent a contact a bit to give the lever a bit more range. Been working great for almost a year.<p>Apple Watch. Replaced battery. Sealing the screen again was a mess and didn’t last long, but it was good for a while.<p>A series of laptops

Certain vacuum cleaners.<p>There are still vacuum cleaner repair shops in many cities. But they&#x27;re often hard to find because they don&#x27;t have the money to advertise or a web site.<p>If you&#x27;re a DIY person, look at Dyson. People on HN like to complain about Dyson vaca because they&#x27;re expensive. But they&#x27;re also a good example of right-to-repair.<p>Mine recently had a problem and I found out that almost every part of it can be ordered online, even though it&#x27;s older. And when my part arrived, disassembly was simple, and the instructions clear. It even came with new screws.

As others have said, doing maintenance before things get to the point of needing repair is also worthwhile. When I buy something that I want to last a while, I make sure to read the manual and also do some additional research to identify any scheduled maintenance that should be done, and I create a reminder in my Todo app to stay on top of it. That includes big things like car maintenance, and small things, like laundering a shower curtain before it get so stained and gross it can&#x27;t be cleaned.

I feel like most things that have a small plastic clip that gets broken...like a vacuum cleaner. Look up &quot;plastic welding&quot; and save lots of money on simple things like that.

Water heaters; supposedly, if you replace the anode rods every 5 years, most water heaters would last the lifetime of the house, versus many replace the whole unit in 10 years.

I frequently repair tools. If a handle breaks, I have a bamboo plant that I periodically harvest from that makes surprisingly good handles for e.g. garden shovels. My wife had a pair of small scissors with a broken handle that I repaired with lashings saturated with CA glue. Stuff like shower mats can be sunned out to kill mold, but they will eventually just need to be thrown out.

Lots of the more analogue electronic stuff that stopped working &quot;for no reason&quot; can often be repaired very easily (might require some basic soldering skills.) Just opening up the device and following the wire will often reveal that it is something banal, like the wire not being tightly secured somewhere.

Appliances.<p>With an abundance of YouTube videos and multiple parts suppliers many appliances can be repaired with a few hours work and $100 in parts (depending on what&#x27;s wrong of course)<p>I&#x27;ve repaired a freezer (thermostat&#x2F;temp control) and a clothes dryer. Have also fixed my furnace.

Sometimes the item is thrown away before it breaks. I was handed a 24 inch smart tv and told “nothing wrong with it, still works”. I dont think it is worth fixing everything that breaks, but maybe 30% of broken items by my estimate are easily repaired.

Dryers; a new heating element or new bearing kit are about an hour of a job and $30 of parts.

Furniture

Oh, my holiday altercation with Kitchenaid brand stand mixers.<p>We have a Kitchenaid mixer. It came with aluminum whisks and dough hooks, which don&#x27;t dishwash. So I splurged on a 150 dollar set of stainless steel upgrades. They arrived, and I test fit them - they attached! And being the wise, old, fool that I am, I discarded the original attachments in a ceremony over jack daniels laced eggnog.<p>So then, Christmas Eve, we go to attach them and whip up a bunch of dough to make puff pastry, which is how one might make a raspberry turnover. Alas, the little attachments are barely too small to reach the bowl! And so everything is asunder, a bowl of un-kneaded dough.<p>Fortunately we live in a country that really rewards consumerism, and so 75 minutes later on Christmas Eve itself, I was back from the store with a replacement Kitchenaid, the &#x27;Artisan&#x27; series, which I wisely spent a brief moment verifying would double my sunk-cost fallacy in 150 dollar attachments.<p>I hop into the shower, and my wife starts kneading the 6 cups of dough. Our ceiling fan wafts air in from the kitchen, which generally ends a shower prematurely for wont of sprinting to confectionary delights. This time, I spelled a burning motor. A moment later, my hands were feeling the motor casing for heat: blistering hot! Of course, being an infrastructure engineer for the public cloud, I instantly knew that this was &#x27;bad&#x27; and turned the device off quickly.<p>&quot;Ahah!&quot; I declared victory with a sardonic undertone, &quot;This mixer voids the warranty for more than two cups of flour, with the speed above &#x27;low&#x27;, for any dough kneading!&quot;<p>Well, we ended up going back to the Kitchenaid professional. It&#x27;s got a speed control issue and needs a new controller board. The gearbox often breaks little gear bits off and also requires repair on these. And many of the newer models have a plastic cases that warps under extreme heat - some describe this as a safety design feature to protect the metal gears, and others say its a cheaper component and unintentional downgrade. Either way, the parts are user accessible and replaceable. People who rely on these devices will apparently keep extra parts in anticipation of their failure, to carry on with minimal downtime.<p>And yes, there is another box of 150 dollar attachments somewhere in the mail, to replace the aluminum ones I brazenly tossed into the recycling bin. And yes, I lost the packaging for the ones too-small. So my friend gets a set for his artisan I confirmed he randomly owns sheepishly, and I get the original functionality back; I end up with exactly what I had, plus also a lesson hard-earned, for the low cost of 300 dollars. There is no age limit on feeling dumb :D Happy Holidays

&gt; I appreciate I could clean it instead, which would be less wasteful.<p>Taking it to a commercial laundromat with one of those big front-loaders would probably work. Put in plenty of bleach.

Kitchenaid Stand Mixers. The parts can be bought from Kitchenaid directly for reasonable costs and from my experience no special tools are needed. Lots of videos online too.

If it&#x27;s not a consumable item, and it&#x27;s not completely worn out beyond the point of no return, it can almost definitely be repaired. Exceptions are rare.

It&#x27;s an opportunity cost question here. Is your time worth more than the money to replace it? As you get older your time is much more valuable IMO.

I&#x27;m a big believer in &quot;own your stuff&quot; - follow your maintenance and storage guides, save digital copies of your manuals, call the 1800 hotline (they are super helpful!), get handy with basic (handheld!) elecrical and mechanical repairs, and share what you&#x27;ve learned.<p>That being said, the main reasons I replace what could be repaired are:<p>* a chance to upgrade something I bought 15 years ago<p>* cost of replacement parts is too high = most appliances fall in this category, very frustrating<p>* anything involving woodworking, it has never interested me but in hindsight I could&#x27;ve fixed quite a few things that just needed a new foot or bracket or even a whole drawer<p>Things I&#x27;ve replaced that were repairable:<p>Umbrellas, clocks, electric can opener, game consoles, IKEA bookshelfs and other furniture, carpets, hoses, electric tiller (part prices grrr), handheld vacs (part availability grrrr), a ton of kid toys that just needed a breadboard or piezo or light<p>Tldr Not as much as you&#x27;d think after 20 years of marriage, kids, and upward mobility, take care of your things!

Marriages.