The invisible half of a repair
Repair quotes are written down, argued about and compared. The eleven days between the diagnosis and the return visit are not written down anywhere, and for a washing machine or a refrigerator they routinely cost more than the parts.
With the defaults here — eleven days at nine dollars — coping comes to 99 dollars. Renting by the week at 35 dollars plus a 25 dollar delivery is two weeks whether you need eleven days or fourteen, so 95 dollars. A 189 dollar stopgap that resells for 70 is 119. Three numbers within twenty-five dollars of each other, which is the usual shape of it: none of the options is obviously right and the ranking flips on small changes.
Rental weeks do not divide
An eleven day outage on a weekly rental is two weeks. That is why the crossover matters more than the total: the rental works out at 8.64 dollars a day over eleven days, so it beats coping whenever coping costs you more than that — and the moment the outage stretches to fifteen days it becomes three weeks and the per-day figure goes back up to 8.67 dollars with a third week paid for one day of use.
The stopgap behaves in the opposite way. It costs 119 dollars whether the wait is three days or thirty, so it looks terrible on a short outage and better than everything else on a long one. At nine dollars a day of coping it takes just over thirteen days to justify itself, and at four dollars a day nearly thirty.
Pricing your own coping honestly
Most people underprice this field, because the costs are small and frequent and never land on one receipt. A laundromat trip is not the wash price; it is the wash, the dry, the drive, and an hour and a half of a Saturday. Eating out because the oven is dead is the difference between the meal and what you would have cooked, not the whole bill.
The hour value field is deliberately set to zero by default. Turn it on and the arithmetic changes fast: half an hour a day at twenty dollars adds ten dollars a day, which more than doubles the default coping cost and pushes both alternatives well ahead. That is a real effect and it is also the one number here that is a preference rather than a measurement, which is why it starts switched off rather than at a figure somebody else picked.
Assume it runs long
Every quoted lead time on a part is optimistic, and the failure modes compound: a backorder, an appointment that slips, a second fault found on the return visit. Run the same numbers at twenty-two days instead of eleven and coping goes to 198 dollars, the rental to 165, and the stopgap stays at 119. The ranking has completely reversed, and nothing about the appliance changed.
That is the test worth doing before committing to any of it. An option that is cheapest only if the optimistic date holds is not really the cheapest option, it is a bet on a date given by somebody who does not control the supply chain.
Questions people ask
How much does it cost to be without a washing machine?
Whatever your alternative costs, which is why this page asks rather than tells. Work it from a week you have already lived through: the laundromat wash and dry, the drive, and the time. At nine dollars a day, an eleven day wait for a part is 99 dollars, which is comparable to renting and to buying a cheap stopgap and reselling it, and all three land within twenty-five dollars at the defaults.
Is it cheaper to rent an appliance or just cope?
It depends on the day count and it flips. A weekly rental over eleven days works out at 8.64 dollars a day, so it wins whenever coping costs more than that. But rental weeks do not divide: a fifteen day outage is three weeks, and the third week buys one day. Short outages favour coping, long ones favour the rental, and the page prints the day where they cross at your numbers.
Should I buy a cheap second appliance while I wait?
The stopgap is the option that does not scale with time. It costs what it costs whether the wait is three days or a month, which makes it poor for a short outage and the strongest option for a long one — at the defaults it overtakes coping after about thirteen days. The catch is the resale value, because a stopgap you never actually sell costs its full price rather than the net figure.
Why does the page count the spoiled food against every option?
Because it has already happened. A freezer that failed and dumped its contents cost you that whatever you do next, so putting it against one option and not another would make the comparison meaningless. It is included so the total reflects what the outage really cost, while leaving the comparison between the three routes untouched.
Should I count my own time?
That is up to you and the field starts at zero for that reason. Half an hour a day at twenty dollars an hour adds ten dollars a day, which more than doubles the default coping cost and changes the ranking outright. It is a legitimate cost and it is also the only number on this page set by preference rather than measurement, so it is worth seeing the answer both with it and without it.