One of the most common questions we get before a technician is even booked is simply: what's this going to cost? It's a fair question, and the honest answer is "it depends" — but that answer is more useful when you know what it depends on.
The diagnostic fee is the starting point
Every visit starts with a flat diagnostic fee, which covers the technician's time to test the appliance and identify the actual fault. Approve the repair and that fee is subtracted from your final invoice. Decide against it and the diagnostic charge is the only thing you owe — nobody pressures you into a repair you're not sure about.
Why the same symptom can cost differently
Two washers that "won't drain" can have completely different causes — a fifteen-minute pump filter clean on one machine, or a drain pump replacement on another. The symptom sounds identical from the outside, but the parts and labour involved are not, which is why we test before quoting rather than pricing over the phone from a description alone.
Roughly where costs tend to land
Without pretending every job is the same, a few patterns hold fairly consistently across appliance types:
- Simple part swaps — door seals, thermostats, igniters, drain pump clogs — tend to be the most affordable repairs, often finished in under an hour.
- Mid-range repairs — heating elements, control boards on simpler appliances, drive belts — sit in the middle, usually still a single visit.
- Larger repairs — compressors, transmissions, major control board replacements on premium appliances — cost more and are exactly where the repair-versus-replace question becomes worth asking seriously.
What pushes cost up
Premium and built-in brands generally cost more to repair than standard models, partly because the parts themselves cost more and partly because access can be more involved — a panel-ready column refrigerator takes longer to open up than a standard freestanding unit.
The rule we actually use: if a repair quote passes roughly half the price of a new equivalent appliance on a unit already past eight to ten years old, we'll tell you that replacement is probably the better spend — even though that means less work for us. See our full repair-or-replace guide for how to weigh that decision yourself.
The bottom line
You'll always get parts and labour in writing before any work starts. No repair happens on a guess, and no invoice arrives as a surprise.