Earn money by repairing things.

[dreampreneur]

Does anyone repair things for profit? Not as a business, but as a gig / side income in the FIRE phase? I fixed and sold a few laser printers recently - people sell them for a few bucks or give them away for free as soon as they develop a minor fault. Any ideas what else can be repaired for profit without special tools and without extensive training?

[Morning Glory]

Kitchen aid mixers come to mind. My husband has had to replace worn gears on mine a couple times and found it fairly straightforward.  He thought about looking for more to fix and flip.

Other popular choices include vacuums and gas powered lawn equipment (anything with a small engine).

[dreampreneur]

I was thinking of lawn mowers. In my area people just drop them at the road side.

A friend of mine fixed a minor problem in his washing machine by himself. However he decided not to fix washing machines ever again - the time and work spent on disassembling was not worth the extended lifespan of the machine.

[Dicey]

We used to have a member who fixed washers and dryers. He seemed to enjoy it and found it quite profitable. He claimed there was virtually always money inside of them. I don't doubt it. I'm also sure there are plenty of single socks.

[HipGnosis]

I've fixed a few lamps and helped a couple people replace elec. switches and outlets (because I'd need a lisc to do it myself for profit. wink, wink).
Neighborhood websites and apps are great - but I hate being 'on-call' 24-7, so I put the app on an old cell phn and found a cheap (low use) cell plan for it.

[zolotiyeruki]

I've done it as a hobby a few times.  I enjoy fixing things.  Don't expect it to be particularly profitable in terms of an hourly wage, though, unless/until you get to know the insides of stuff *really* well. 

That said, if I were retired, I could make a *lot* of money in our (maybe upper-)middle-class neighborhood by being a handyman.  Our neighborhood FB page has lots of requests for things that are really easy to fix.  "The dog chewed on my trim" or "I need to replace a light fixture."

[PHAT]

In my area I see lots of posts for requests to repair various appliances - washing machine/dryer, dishwasher, fridge, oven/stove, etc.  Also small engine stuff like lawn mowers, snow blower, chain saws - they need engine tune-ups and sharpening all the time that most people (including myself) have no idea how to do.  I have done my own appliances several times, but in my case the hours I need to spend watching YouTube videos in advance would not make my time affordable!  But if you know your stuff perhaps you could fix them faster?  Probably the old-school stuff would be fairly easy, but the new fancy stuff with lots of electronics might not. 

Another thing to consider - if you need parts, where do you source them from?  We had an old oven that didn't keep temperature very well, and when we looked at getting a new thermostat for it, it was cheaper to buy a new oven (even for an aftermarket knockoff)!  Or would you DIY even those types of repairs as well?  I do have a friend that will do that (he once fixed the choke on our snowblower with an old Bodum coffee maker and a rubber band), and I highly respect that type of work, but not sure if that would fly with strangers who are paying money?

[zolotiyeruki]

In my area I see lots of posts for requests to repair various appliances - washing machine/dryer, dishwasher, fridge, oven/stove, etc.  Also small engine stuff like lawn mowers, snow blower, chain saws - they need engine tune-ups and sharpening all the time that most people (including myself) have no idea how to do.  I have done my own appliances several times, but in my case the hours I need to spend watching YouTube videos in advance would not make my time affordable!  But if you know your stuff perhaps you could fix them faster?  Probably the old-school stuff would be fairly easy, but the new fancy stuff with lots of electronics might not. 

Another thing to consider - if you need parts, where do you source them from?  We had an old oven that didn't keep temperature very well, and when we looked at getting a new thermostat for it, it was cheaper to buy a new oven (even for an aftermarket knockoff)!  Or would you DIY even those types of repairs as well?  I do have a friend that will do that (he once fixed the choke on our snowblower with an old Bodum coffee maker and a rubber band), and I highly respect that type of work, but not sure if that would fly with strangers who are paying money?

Almost every microwave today is manufactured by the same company in China, and parts are *very* commoditized.  Once you've delved deeply into one model, you know 98% of what you need to repair another one.  They all come with a printed wiring diagram inside, and many come with a troubleshooting flowchart.  Other appliances are also very similar to each other--a dishwasher has a drain pump, and wash pump, a couple valves, a control board, and a couple actuators to release the soap, etc.  Every brand has those same components, perhaps arranged differently, but they all work by the same principles.  If you know a little about electronics, and are willing to dive deeper, you can diagnose individual components, like the relay in my brother's microwave.

Small engines are similar--there's nothing super complicated about them, and a limited number of repairable things that can go wrong on them.  If you've got The Knack, it won't be long before you can intuitively diagnose stuff pretty quickly.

[Dicey]

Our RV has a sofa that turns into a bed. It has an end section that we raise at night, then drop down during the day. It's all electronic. Underneath the bed is an external storage compartment as well as the motor and cables to operate the bed/sofa. It seems that "someone" packed so much stuff for the Magical Moab Meetup into it that it put pressure on a cable, which eventually snapped.* On the way home, we just slept a bit more snugly on the other 4/5 of the bed, which was fine.

However, DH can't stand for something we use regularly to not be in full working order. Our rig is eleven years old, so he expected getting parts was going to be a challenge, and he was right. The RV manufacturer could provide the part, but it was a bit spendy. Instead, DH found a company that actually makes/assembles these cables in the US. He called them and they were super helpful. He bought three cables, because they were inexpensive, and not exactly the same length as the originals. DH created a plate that lets him adjust the motor placement so the cables fit. He also fixed the bed's "up/down" button, which was always backwards. Better than new! He estimates the repair would have been about $600 at an RV shop. Instead, he spent $70.

*"Someone" thinks the cable snapped because the bed is heavy and eleven years old. But the one with the skills to solve the problem gets to call the diagnosis, right? 😉