Comment by pixl97
1 month ago
I mean, repairing anything requires knowledge. The problem with most home devices is they are not repairable at all and you can't get parts.
While I'm a computer farmer for my day job, I can repair a vast amount of different devices as long as they don't take specialised equipment like vacuum pumps. And while I don't consider myself a rich person, between my wife and I we're in the higher income brackets in the US, I still service as much of my own stuff as possible. And in general commercial stuff is in the same price ranges as the higher end consumer stuff.
The good/bad part of modern consumer appliances is that they are largely giant computers with fewer mechanical parts to fail. They can be more reliable but when something breaks, it almost always requires replacing a main board that costs 25-50% of the replacement cost of the entire unit.
I've had two boards die on appliances this year. Fortunately, warranty coverage paid for the parts. So now I have a practically new refrigerator and furnace. At least until they fail again in 3-5 years.