A table with a loose leg, a picture frame with a piece missing – so often our everyday items are all too easy to throw away when broken.
But those with a passion for fixing things are trying to bring our goods full circle. In repair cafes and online forums, people are coming together to answer one simple question: can I fix it?
Here are some common household items that experts say are worth trying to repair – and those that are better off recycled.
Washers and dryers
Having noticed the generational decline in being handy at repairs, Brendan Norris started website Fixable in 2022 hoping to give people the skills and knowledge they needed. But what he thought was going to be a purely “transactional” affair, soon became a community.
“I tell the story of a really good friend of mine who had a front-loading washing machine, and the plastic handle on it broke,” says Norris.
“It worked perfectly fine … he tried a little bit to get it repaired but then it was just too hard and he put the whole thing out for hard rubbish and bought a new one ….just for a plastic handle.”
It is this linear thinking that Norris wants to change.
Some of the most common household items that people come to Fixable for help with are washing machines and dryers.
As well as material fixes, washing machines often get clogged, or have a valve or internal part that needs replacing. Fixers online and on hand at cafes can help find the cause of the problem.
Small electrical goods
Repair cafe coordinator, Michael Mink, says about 60% of what people bring into his repair cafe has a plug or battery. His workshop is equipped with tagging equipment that can test for electrical integrity to ensure safe repair.
Depending on the problem, Mink says that many items can be repaired easily when it’s not an electrical fault.
Stand mixers can usually be brought back to life with a bit of cleaning, he says, and plastic parts or broken cords on appliances can often be repaired by stripping back wires or replacing the plug. Fixers at the repair cafe have even fixed sewing machines.
Items with a higher price tag like vacuum cleaners are also worth investigating – from clogged filters to needing a new circuit board – but Mink is fond of fixing the old relics.
“We had someone who had a Sony Walkman recorder that she had used in her 20s at uni and it had been broken for at least a decade,” says Mink.
“She had a whole bunch of tapes with it from her home town.”
Unfortunately toasters are one item that usually can’t be repaired, Mink says, and recommends people take them to a local electrical recycler.
“Once the element is broken it’s done for.”
Timber furniture
Mink sees people change their habits once they see what’s possible and many come with an eagerness to learn skills themselves.
“Somebody once brought in a big oak bed head that had fallen when they were moving,” says Mink.
“It was a minor break, but he couldn’t justify the $500 it would cost to take it to a carpenter. He brought it in and it was great fun.”
Chairs and tables don’t take much to fix with the right tools, either by replacing a leg or applying a coat of polish – one lady came to the repair cafe simply asking for help.
“She was a GP and she just really wanted to learn how to fix this wooden chair,” says Mink.
“We showed her and she did about 80 to 90% of the work. She just needed to be taught.”
Odds and ends
Volunteer repairers are sometimes apprehensive about unknowns.
But the best item Mink has seen was a fairy floss machine that had been in the family for decades and hauled to birthday parties 10 to 15 times a year. The owner had called around to try to find someone who could fix it, but nobody would take a look.
“It was huge – it weighed 25kg.”
“On the back of it, we found these two little knobs, and a plate came up and there was a whole repair kit inside the fairy floss machine. It had a screws and a grease applicator and everything.”
Broken picture frames, clocks and even old camera lenses have also come through the cafe. At Mink’s cafe, photo frames have been pieced back together, replacement clock hands have been found, as well as tinkering with old toys to make them work again as collectibles.Bikes - which often just need the right set of tools to change a tyre and someone with the know-how to tinker with the gears - are also common.
But most of all, repairing keeps items off the street and out of landfill. For Norris, places like Fixable hope to encourage more and more people to change their behaviour.
“There’s all this latent knowledge and skills and people who love to do it”
“We’re signing up new people all the time, which is really great, and it just shows this desire or demand in communities for something like this.”
