Save Money on Appliance Repairs

It was perfect timing, my in-laws were visiting this weekend, and our oven began to improperly function when my wife tried to put dinner in the oven. Luckily we rescued dinner by using our neighbor's oven, but the larger issue of dealing with the oven remains.

When something breaks, I prefer to sit on the issue for a day or two to make sure we don't rush our decisions (and spend too much money in the process). My wife and I had just recently had a conversation about her interest in replacing our oven and ofcourse that was the first thing we discussed after the oven malfunctioned was should we buy a replacement?

Since we just bought a new refrigerator and we are in the market for a swing set I didn't think the timing was right to swing another larger expense, my preference was to get it fixed.

However rather than calling a repair person I wanted to at least make an initial attempt to fix it myself. For us to have a repair person visit the house and try to diagnose the issue is at least a $75 expense. To have them actually fix the problem may be significantly more depending on the problem. If it is a fairly easy issue to fix it is worth 1-2 hours of my time to save $75+.

Yesterday I spent about 45 minutes looking at the oven and online to determine the main problem was likely just an issue with our oven baking element. I ordered a new element for $31.14 at partstore.com and hope it will be here at the end of the week. Until then we will be grilling out a bunch!

Appliance parts are actually pretty easy to buy online - if you know your manufacturer and model # many part websites have component diagrams to identify the part you need. I also previously used MidwestApplianceParts.com to purchase a new thermostat for our dryer and was pretty happy with the service.

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Comments (2)

It's actually so much cheaper to be good with your hands. I'm not handy with tools at all, so we have to call a repairman every time something goes wrong in our house or cars.

Posted by Joe | March 21, 2011 9:05 PM

Wooohooo, go 2million! Can I call you if I need repairs?

Posted by Steve | March 25, 2011 7:15 PM