Every home owner has had a time when one of their major appliances failed to do as it should. At that time, you have only a few options. You can purchase a new one, have the old one repaired, or live without it. If the major appliance is a stove, refrigerator, washer, or dryer, you may not be able to live without it for very long. At that point, your options are narrowed down to only two, repair it or start new. That is also when you have to decide if it is really worth it to repair that appliance.
If you have a gas range that has a pilot lite on it and still works the way it should when the power goes out; you are going to save money on all possible repairs for it. They are simple stoves that do not require a lot of parts to keep it in good working order. The same can be said for older style electric stoves that use elements. The burner may stop working, but most of the time it can be repaired by the owner instead of a repairman.
Electric dryers are also fairly basic to repair. They are the ones that do not have a lot of digital aspects. The parts for them are often inexpensive and there are very few wires inside of it when you open up the back. Freezers and window unit air conditioners are also in this group of appliances as easy and cheap to repair.
If you have an electronic or digital aspect to any of your appliances, you can expect to pay a lot more for repairing them. That is because the digital stuff has a lot more wiring and a lot more can potentially go wrong with it. For instance, self-cleaning ovens, stoves with a flat top range hood, and other things of that caliber are expensive to repair because they are very complicated. The one exception to this rule is the refrigerator. Even though most of them are not very complicated, the fridge is beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most expensive appliance to repair. A lot of things can go wrong with them and most often it does require expensive parts and the repair man spending a lot of time getting to the faulty part. It requires special tools and special knowledge. The end result is that it does truly become a matter of you may be better off to purchase new rather than repair old.
