Three questions before you repair a big-ticket appliance

The Week reduces the repair-or-replace decision to three questions, in order. First: is it still under warranty? If so, repair it — even if you owe a trip charge or a small service fee — because the parts and labor are covered. Second: how does the repair cost compare to a replacement? The standard guidance is to replace when a fix would run more than half the price of a new unit, so a $400 oven isn’t worth a repair north of $200. Third: how old is it? An appliance near the end of its expected life will likely keep needing repairs, so pouring money in rarely pays off.

It’s a clean framework, but the second question is the one most people can’t answer at the moment they need to. You know the warranty status and you know the age — but “what should this repair cost?” is exactly the figure a service call is designed to reveal only after you’ve committed.

OwnWise gives you that number up front. Describe the symptom and it identifies the likely fault and a fair price to fix it — so you can run The Week’s half-the-cost test before anyone’s in your kitchen, and walk into the repair already knowing whether it’s worth it.