What appliance repairs cost, and what the visit adds
Every guide on this site prices its own fault, and the numbers are not comparable until you know what is inside them: a quote can be for a part, for the part fitted, or for the visit alone. This page collects the figures the guides publish so a quote can be placed somewhere on the map instead of being judged on its own.
The visit, before any part is fitted
The fixed part of an appliance repair is the visit. Everything above it is the part and the labour to reach it, which is why two invoices for the same fault can differ by a factor of two while both are honest.
A diagnostic fee is normally credited against the repair when the work is approved, which is what makes the free checks on each guide worth doing first. Where a source prices the visit as the whole job - a vent clearing, for example - the figure appears in the repair column rather than as a fee.
The span inside one fault
The most useful number on any of these pages is not the average, it is the distance between the cheapest and the dearest cause behind the same symptom. That distance is the reason a phone quote is not a quote.
| Appliance | Cheapest route on that page | Dearest |
|---|---|---|
| home appliance | loud screech at startup (dryer: worn drive belt) — $322 installed | buzzing or rattling from the back (refrigerator: evaporator or condenser fan motor) — $422 installed |
| Bosch dishwasher | clogged filter — no part needed | water in the base pan, anti-flood lockout — $266–$390 installed |
| cooktop | heat trapped under a pan that is too big, or too small — no part needed | the fault is under the glass, not in it — $255–$530 installed |
| dishwasher | wrong detergent, or overfoaming — no part needed | cracked sump or tub-to-sump gasket — $285–$425 installed |
| dishwasher | clogged spray arm holes (mineral scale) — no part needed | failing wash pump or circulation motor — $300–$480 installed |
| dishwasher | rinse aid has run out — no part needed | hard water scale shortening the element's life — $294–$514 installed |
| dishwasher | control lock, delay start or sleep mode left on — no part needed | failed main control board — $280–$500 installed |
| dryer | crushed or kinked transition duct — no part needed | lint-packed or failed blower wheel — $368 installed |
| dryer | clogged vent run (lint restriction) — no part needed | burned-out heating element (electric dryers) — $60–$150 part |
| dryer | lint accumulated past the screen in the duct run — no part needed | a run with no margin left, where a section or termination has to be replaced — $199–$405 installed |
| freezer | door gasket that no longer seals — $312–$588 installed | failed control board — $408–$604 installed |
| garbage disposal | jammed flywheel or impeller — no part needed | seized motor bearings — $150–$450 installed |
| gas stove | food residue blocking the burner ports — no part needed | dead igniter, cracked electrode or failed spark module — $315–$576 installed |
| refrigerator | shutoff arm or ice level sensor stuck in the off position — no part needed | compressor or sealed system fault behind a warm freezer — $466–$1,200 installed |
| microwave | demo (showroom) mode left switched on — no part needed | burnt or soiled waveguide cover (arcing) — $265–$527 installed |
| microwave | burnt food or grease baked onto the interior — no part needed | soiled or burnt waveguide cover arcing — $265–$527 installed |
| oven | one leg of the 240-volt supply lost — no part needed | weak or failed gas igniter — $210–$380 installed |
| oven | calibration drift, which is not a failed part — no part needed | failed control board deciding the wrong thing — $469 installed |
| range hood | a grease filter that has stopped passing air — no part needed | undersized duct, or a run that breaks the code it was installed under — $650–$2,500 installed |
| refrigerator | clogged defrost drain — no part needed | door gasket letting humid air in — $395 installed |
| refrigerator | blocked rear air vents or an overpacked cabinet — no part needed | compressor or sealed-system failure — $670–$1,330 installed |
| washing machine | worn directional cogs in a dual-action agitator — not priced | worn transmission or drive motor — $360–$650 installed |
| washing machine | clogged drain-pump filter or trap — no part needed | clogged house standpipe or building drain — $150–$300 installed |
| washing machine | unbalanced load detection stopping the spin — no part needed | worn drum bearings — $334–$408 installed |
| washing machine | levelling feet and a floor that only looks flat — no part needed | worn drum bearings — $367–$372 installed |
Why the same fault quotes differently
Three things move a price more than the part does. Access: a dishwasher has to come out from under a counter, a built-in microwave has to be unmounted, a front-loader's drum has to be partly dismantled - and that labour is charged at an hourly rate, not by the symptom. The market: published national ranges sit below the medians of shops that include the service call in the invoice, and both are published here side by side rather than averaged into a number that describes neither. What is counted: parts, labour, the visit, haul-away and installation are separate lines, and a quote that omits one of them is not cheaper, it is incomplete.
Where the sources behind a record disagree, the record carries both figures. The clearest examples on this site are a washing machine lid switch, priced at $307-427 by one source and $140-220 by another, and a refrigerator compressor, where a completed-repair median of $466 sits against a 2026 installed band of $700-1,200. Neither pair was averaged: which end applies depends on the machine, the market and what the invoice includes.
How to read a quote
Ask three questions before comparing anything: what is included (part, labour, visit, haul-away), what happens if the diagnosis changes once the machine is open, and what the same fault costs to replace rather than repair. The guides apply the half-of-new-price rule to that last question - a repair that passes roughly half the price of a comparable new machine is where replacement starts to win - and the age of the appliance decides the rest, because the same repair is worth doing on a five-year-old machine and not on one already past its expected life.
Where these figures come from
Nothing on this page is estimated by us. Each row is taken from the guide it links to, where the figure is tied to a named source: published price guides, and repair companies that publish medians from their own completed work orders together with the number of jobs behind them. Where a source publishes no part-only price, the record says so instead of inventing one; where it publishes no duration, the page says that too.