Right to Repair: How to Fix What You Own Instead of Replacing It

The phone slows to a crawl, the washing machine throws an error code, the headphones cut out in one ear. You already know how this goes. You’ll look up the repair, find it costs nearly as much as a new one, hear “it’s not really worth fixing” from someone at a counter, and a few days later a fresh device will arrive in a box. You didn’t decide to throw the old thing away. The decision was made for you, quietly, long before it broke.

The short version: The right to repair is your ability to fix, modify, and maintain the things you’ve bought — rather than being funnelled toward replacing them. For decades that ability was deliberately engineered out of products: glued-shut cases, paired parts that reject third-party replacements, software locks, and “service-only” designs. The practical move is to repair more of what you own by starting with the easy, high-impact fixes — batteries, screens, filters, fuses, fan dust, worn cables — using community guides and basic tools, while buying repairable products going forward. You won’t fix everything, and some repairs genuinely aren’t safe or worth it. But every thing you keep alive is one you didn’t have to re-buy, and one less vote for a system that profits from your stuff failing on schedule.

What does “right to repair” actually mean?

The phrase sounds like a slogan, so it’s worth being concrete about what it covers.

The right to repair is the principle that when you buy something, you own it fully — including the right to open it, understand it, fix it, and choose who fixes it. That means access to spare parts, repair manuals, diagnostic tools, and the ability to install a replacement part without the device fighting you. It’s the difference between owning a thing and merely licensing the privilege of using it until the maker decides you’re due for a new one.

This isn’t abstract. Right-to-repair laws and rules have been advancing in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and a growing number of US states, precisely because the gap between “I bought it” and “I’m allowed to fix it” had grown so wide. The very fact that lawmakers had to legislate a right to fix your own belongings tells you how far ownership had quietly eroded.

You are not imagining it: things genuinely are made harder to repair than they used to be — and that was a choice, not an accident.

The villain: planned obsolescence and the death of ownership

Here’s the system most repair advice never names. The reason fixing things feels impossible isn’t that you’re not handy. It’s that a great deal of design effort goes into ensuring you can’t be.

Consider the techniques, all real and all common: batteries glued in rather than clipped, so a £15 part becomes a £120 “non-serviceable” job. Screws in proprietary shapes that standard tools won’t turn. Parts “paired” to the device by software, so a genuine replacement screen or battery throws warnings or loses features unless the manufacturer blesses it. Repair manuals kept private. Spare parts simply not sold to you. Software updates that quietly slow older hardware or drop support, nudging you toward the upgrade.

Each of these has an innocent-sounding justification — thinness, waterproofing, security, “the experience.” And some of those justifications are partly true. But the cumulative effect is unmistakable and profitable: a product that’s easier to replace than repair, owned by a customer trained to replace it. This is the death of ownership dressed up as progress. You don’t own a thing you’re not allowed to open.

Naming it changes how the slowdown and the error code feel. You’re not failing to keep up. You’re on the receiving end of a business model that needs your possessions to die on a timetable — and “it’s not worth fixing” is the script that closes the sale.

The reframe: replacing is the expensive option, not the cheap one

Everyone treats replacement as the rational, economical choice. The old thing is “past it,” repair is “a hassle,” a new one is “only” a bit more — so you upgrade, and feel sensible doing it.

Run the real numbers and the logic flips. Replacing isn’t the cheap path; it’s the most expensive habit you have — you just pay for it one purchase at a time so it never feels like the bleak it is.

A glued-in battery costs the maker a few pounds; replacing the whole phone costs you hundreds. A worn drive belt or a clogged pump can revive a washing machine for the price of a part and an hour, instead of the cost — and the delivery, and the disposal — of a new appliance. Across a decade and a household full of devices, the gap between “repair the few things worth repairing” and “replace on the manufacturer’s schedule” is not small. It’s one of the larger invisible drains on a normal budget, and like most invisible drains, it’s defended as convenience.

There’s a second cost that doesn’t hit your wallet: every replaced device is manufactured, shipped, and eventually dumped. Electronic waste is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world, much of it from things discarded while still fixable. You don’t have to be an environmentalist to dislike paying to throw away working materials. The point stands on self-interest alone — but the planet quietly benefits when you keep your stuff.

How to start repairing what you own (the easy wins first)

The fastest way to stay trapped in replace-mode is to imagine repair means soldering circuit boards. It mostly doesn’t. The highest-value fixes are surprisingly ordinary, and you can start with one this week.

Begin with the easy, high-impact category:

1. Batteries. A phone, laptop, or cordless tool that “needs replacing” very often just needs a new battery. On many devices this is a guided, low-cost swap. Check whether yours is user-replaceable before you write the whole thing off.
2. Filters, fuses, and dust. A “dying” vacuum, dishwasher, or laptop is frequently just clogged. A blocked filter, a blown fuse in a plug, or a fan packed with dust mimics serious failure and costs almost nothing to clear.
3. Cables and connectors. Charging that’s gone temperamental, headphones dead in one ear, a flickering monitor — often a frayed cable, not a dead device. The cheapest fix in the world is replacing the wire, not the thing the wire plugs into.
4. Screens and worn parts. More repairable than people assume, with kits and step-by-step guides widely available for popular models.

For the how, you don’t have to know anything in advance. Community repair guides — most famously the crowd-written manuals on iFixit, plus the maker’s own documentation where it exists — walk you through specific models step by step, with photos and a parts-and-tools list. A basic precision screwdriver set and a plastic prying tool handle a large share of household repairs. Many areas also have Repair Cafés — volunteer-run events where you bring a broken item and fix it alongside someone who knows how — which are a low-risk way to learn on a real object.

The skill isn’t innate handiness; it’s the willingness to open the thing and follow a guide — and that willingness is the entire difference between an owner and a customer. Start with one cheap, low-stakes item you were going to bin anyway. Worst case, it stays broken and you’ve lost nothing. Best case, you’ve just discovered that “not worth fixing” was someone else’s opinion about your property.

What you shouldn’t try to repair yourself

Credibility means naming the limits honestly, because the reckless version of this article would tell you to open everything, and some things will hurt you.

Leave these to qualified professionals: anything mains-powered that you’d have to open while it could be live, gas appliances, microwave ovens (their capacitors can hold a dangerous charge even unplugged), and the sealed high-voltage battery systems in cars and large energy storage. “I watched a video” is not the same as being trained, insured, and equipped, and electricity and gas do not give second chances. There’s no sovereignty in a fire or a shock.

There are also repairs that are possible but not worth it: when the part costs nearly as much as a sound second-hand replacement, when the device is so old that fixing one fault just exposes the next, or when the time required vastly exceeds the value. Refusing to repair everything isn’t surrender; it’s judgment. The aim is to fix the many things that are easy and worth it — not to prove a point on the one that isn’t.

So the honest verdict: for batteries, filters, cables, screens, and most small mechanical faults, repairing is cheaper, greener, and more empowering than replacing — and for anything high-voltage, gas, or genuinely beyond economic repair, walk away and call a professional. Sovereignty is knowing the difference, not ignoring it.

Frequently asked questions

Will repairing my own device void the warranty?
Often less than you’d fear, and in some places the law protects you. In the US, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act limits a manufacturer’s ability to void a warranty simply because you used third-party parts or service, and “warranty void if removed” stickers are widely considered unenforceable on that basis. Rules differ by country, so check your local consumer-protection law — but the blanket claim that any DIY repair kills all your rights is usually a deterrent, not a fact. If a device is still under warranty and the fault is the maker’s, use the warranty.

Where do I find instructions for my specific model?
Start with iFixit, which hosts crowd-written, photo-illustrated repair guides for thousands of devices, plus the manufacturer’s own service documentation where it’s published. Searching your exact model number plus the symptom (“[model] won’t charge,” “[model] E24 error”) usually surfaces both written guides and video walkthroughs. For appliances, the model and serial plate inside the door or on the back is the key to finding the right part and manual.

Isn’t buying a new one just easier than dealing with a repair?
Easier in the moment, more expensive over time — which is exactly why replacement feels like the default. The honest answer is that easy repairs (a battery, a filter, a cable) are genuinely quick once you’ve done one, while only complex repairs justify the “just buy new” instinct. The convenience of replacing is real; so is the recurring cost and the waste. You’re trading a little effort now for ownership and a lower lifetime bill.

What basic tools do I actually need to start?
Very little. A precision screwdriver set with interchangeable bits (to handle proprietary screws), a couple of plastic prying tools or “spudgers” to open cases without cracking them, a pair of tweezers, and a small container to keep tiny screws in order. That kit, plus a model-specific guide, covers a large share of phone, laptop, and small-appliance repairs. You add specialist tools only when a specific job demands them.

You started reading this because something broke and you already heard the verdict in your head: not worth fixing, just replace it. Notice whose voice that is. It was installed there by a system that earns most when you believe it. The truth is quieter and more useful — most of what you own is more fixable than you’ve been led to think, the easy repairs are genuinely easy, and the knowledge stays with you long after the tool is back in the drawer. That’s the whole of it. You don’t have to fix everything. You just have to stop automatically throwing things away on someone else’s schedule — and become the kind of person who opens the case first, an owner of your possessions rather than a renter of them.