What appliance repair costs here, and why nobody honest quotes it over the phone

Ask five appliance companies what a repair costs and you will get five answers, most of them wrong on purpose. The number over the phone is a number designed to get a van to your door, and the bill that arrives afterwards has very little to do with it. So here is our side of it, stated plainly, including the part where we decline to tell you something.

The two numbers we do publish

A diagnostic visit is $65. A technician comes out, finds the fault, and gives you a firm total before any work begins. If you approve the repair, that $65 is included in the total — you do not pay it twice. If you decide not to go ahead, you pay the $65 and owe nothing further, and you keep the diagnosis.

Residential labour is $85 an hour. That is the rate on the invoice, not a starting point that moves once somebody is on their knees behind your refrigerator.

The number we do not publish

We do not publish a price for "dishwasher repair", and we are not going to, because there is no such price. The phrase covers a drain pump, a door latch, a control board, a heating element and a corroded wire at the junction box, and those are not the same job or remotely the same money. The part is usually most of the bill, and the part is not known until somebody has looked.

A company that quotes you a repair price on the phone is quoting the cheapest plausible version of the job. That is not a quote, it is an opening position — and the moment it is revised upward in your kitchen, you are negotiating from a position where the appliance is already in pieces.

What actually moves the bill

• Which part failed. A door switch and a compressor are both "refrigerator repair" and there is an order of magnitude between them.
• Whether the part is stocked or ordered. A common part on the van finishes today. A brand-specific control board for a built-in unit can mean a second visit and a wait.
• How buried it is. Some machines are designed to be serviced and some are designed to be manufactured. Two identical faults in two brands are not two identical labour times.
• Whether it is a repair at all. Sealed refrigerant work needs EPA certification, which this company does not hold, so a sealed-system fault is diagnosed and explained rather than opened. You are told that on the visit, not after a deposit.

Tax, because it is on the invoice and most people never ask

In California, parts sold as part of a repair are generally taxable and repair labour generally is not. An invoice that applies one rate to the whole subtotal is overcharging you on the labour line. Ours separates them: taxable subtotal, non-taxable subtotal, tax, total — four lines, so you can see which is which and check it.

What a real quote looks like

It names the part. It gives one total, not a range. It comes before the work, not after. It is written down where you can read it again tomorrow, rather than said in a doorway. And it is given by somebody who has already looked at the machine.

Ours also carries a 90-day warranty on parts and labour, which matters more than it sounds: it is the difference between a company that fixed the fault and a company that changed a part. If the same fault comes back inside 90 days, that is our problem to solve.

If the number you are weighing is large enough that you are wondering whether to bother, the honest next question is not about price at all — it is repair or replace, and there is a calculator for it.