ShareThisBy JANET SIMONS
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The Yellow Pages ad for Chatfield Sales and Service proclaims "TV & VCR REPAIR," but owner Greg Malpiede says he's not repairing many videotape recorders these days.
"It's a waste of time for me," he said. "A Chinese prisoner can make one new cheaper than I can repair an old one."
Not that even Chinese prisoners are making many VCRs anymore. It gets harder each day to buy or rent a prerecorded videotape; they're being replaced by DVDs.
Malpiede says wherever repairmen gather, the talk is about how to get out of a business that is becoming the modern equivalent of buggy-whip manufacturing.
"I still work on televisions and vacuum cleaners, but they've become so cheap to replace that it's getting harder all the time. I try to tell people that it's worth making repairs because of the environment. That old TV or vacuum is headed to the landfill. And how much energy and resources are being used to make new ones?"
In a world where new vacuum cleaners are $50, new television-VCR combinations are $70 and new computers are $500, the message seems clear: If it's broke, don't fix it.
In general, that rule applies unless you've spent big bucks on a premium appliance, says Rick Fleming, owner of Bear Valley Appliances.
"As people upgrade their kitchens and replace their old washing machines with front-loaders, the price of appliances is moving upward after being low for a long time," Fleming said.
"Before deciding whether to repair a refrigerator, for example, consider how much it would cost to replace it with a comparable one. If you can replace it for $500, it's probably not a good idea to spend $250 to repair it.
"But if you've got a $5,000 Sub-Zero, repairing it makes a lot of sense."
