There’s no easy way to tell you this, but the Dyson Digital Slim DC59 which you’ve just spent over £300 on, and the washing machine which you rely on each week to clean the school uniforms, towels and bedding, aren’t going to last forever without regular care and maintenance.

The estimated life expectancy of a vacuum cleaner, without regular care and maintenance, is 5 years. For a washing machine, the average life expectancy is between 3 and 6 years. But, with the right care, maintenance and attention there is no reason why you cannot help your household appliances live longer than their average life expectancy, especially if you repair rather than replace the appliances should they develop a fault.

Repairing rather than replacing your appliances when they develop a fault, not only gives them the chance to work at their optimum performance for longer, but it offers other benefits too, such as saving you money.

Save £100s by Repairing not Replacing:

We’ve long been advocates of repairing rather than replacing a faulty appliance. Not only does repairing help the environment but more importantly, it helps you and your finances too.

In fact, repairing an appliance can often work out cheaper than the petrol you use getting to the shop to purchase a new appliance, not to mention the stress of trying to find the right appliance for your home.

But don’t just take our word for it. Instead listen to your fellow BuySpares customers, such as Steven, who in May left the following review:

“Broken £600 Bosch tumble dryer, 4 years old, saved by £7 part from BuySpares. Went with approved spare part rather than official Bosch, looked identical to Bosch part.”

And Steven isn’t alone in saving money by purchasing approved spare parts from us and fixing an appliance himself. Another customer, Su, left a review advising us of her success story of fixing her washing machine – and how much she saved…

“Drum cap broke off our Panasonic washing machine and with a family of 5 we needed to get it up and running again quickly. Online research suggested we were looking at a whole new drum for in the region of £365, if we got a repair guy in. Ordered a drum cap from BuySpares to see if we could sort it out ourselves, for the princely sum of £2.50. It arrived quickly, even though we didn’t pay extra for fast delivery. Hubby replaced cap in a matter of minutes, the only difficulty being removing the screw that held the cap on originally (coaxed off with a mole wrench in the end). In all, chuffed to bits.”

By taking the time to do a bit of research, Su and her family managed to save over £350 on the cost of a professional repair and at least just as much on purchasing a new appliance – and all with a washing machine spare part which cost less than £3.

Whatever Your DIY Skill, You Can Repair It:

Understandably there will be some who are dubious about repairing an appliance, because you feel you don’t have the DIY skills required. But you couldn’t be further from the truth. Whether you know your cross-head screwdriver from your spanner, or a wrench from a socket set or not, with the help of the BuySpares team there’s not a household or garden appliance you won’t be able to fix.

Our advice centre is crammed with dedicated videos showing how to carry out an array of repairs on all appliances, such as the “Universal Fan Oven Element Replacement” video below, and these videos have helped a range of our customers, including Louise who said:

“I just mended my oven, all by myself, for £30. Thank you so much BuySpares for the wonderful tutorial and the amazingly fast delivery of my much needed part.”

And it isn’t just Louise who has recently found our appliance repair videos to be a great source of help; thousands of other customers have too, including Brian who used them when he too experienced an issue with his oven, back in March.

“When the oven stopped working I just saw a huge call out charge and bill for parts. Google came up with BuySpares.co.uk who turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Providing my oven details they emailed back the part I required. The cost and postage was very reasonable so ordered and within a short period of time the part was delivered. The packaging was spot on and I cracked on doing my repair using the video links as a guide. In less than 15 minutes the repair was done and it cost me about 25 – 33% of what I would have to pay for someone to come out.”

So, next time your household and garden appliances develop a fault, instead of instantly heading to the shops to buy new ones, repair them with the help of BuySpares. Not only will this save you money and keep your appliances working to their full potential for longer, but it’ll help you reduce some of the nearly 42 million tonnes of WEEE which is sent to landfills worldwide each year.

Tags: Household Appliances, Money Saving Tips, Repair Appliances