Is it worth fixing?

The rule people mean when they ask

The half rule, or the 50% rule, is the one piece of appliance folklore nearly everybody has heard: if the repair costs more than half of replacing the thing, replace it. It is a sound instinct and it is not nonsense. It was simply written for appliances that cost a few hundred dollars, where half of a new one is a figure a repair can genuinely reach.

Built-in refrigeration is a different arithmetic problem, and the way to find out is to do the sum rather than repeat the rule.

The rule, worked through for a full-height built-in

A comparable full-height built-in — the cabinet nearly every one of these questions is actually about — runs $11,600–$16,800 for the appliance on its own. Half of that is $5,800–$8,400.

The dearest repair anywhere in our table is compressor or sealed-system repair, at $940–$2,290. Its ceiling does not reach the floor of the half figure, and every other band on the page sits below it. Applied to a full-height cabinet, the rule does not produce a close call — it produces the same answer every time, which is repair.

That is not a sales position. It is what happens when you put the two published numbers next to each other, and you can do it yourself from the tables below.

Where the rule does bite

Wine storage and undercounter cabinets are a much lower bar. Replacing one of those is $3,500–$5,500 for the appliance, so half of it is $1,750–$2,750. A sealed-system repair at $940–$2,290 lands on either side of that line depending on what has failed, and that is the one place on this site where the half rule genuinely changes the answer.

So the honest version of the rule is not "half of a fridge". It is half of this cabinet, and a wine cabinet and a six-foot column are not the same purchase. We say which one you have before we quote, not after.

What the rule leaves out

A built-in was not delivered into a gap. The opening was cut to it and the run of joinery was built around it, which is why replacement is rarely only the sticker price. Custom panels and integrated cabinetry add $2,000–$5,000 on top of the appliance, and delivery and installation sit on top of that again. None of it appears in the figure people halve, and all of it belongs on the replacement side of the comparison.

The other omission runs the other way, and we will name it too: a repair buys you the appliance you already have, in the condition it is already in. If the doors have dropped, the liner is cracked and three separate systems have been through our hands, the repair is buying less than it looks like it is buying.

When the repair is clearly the right call

• One named fault, found and measured, with the rest of the cabinet sound.
• Doors that still shut and seal, a straight cabinet, controls behaving.
• A part that is available, so the repair finishes rather than waits.
• A kitchen nobody is about to rebuild around a new opening size.

Under those conditions the sum is not close, and neither is the inconvenience: a repair is a morning, and a replacement is a joiner, a delivery and a hole in the kitchen. 90 days on labour, 365 days on parts.

When it is genuinely a judgement call

• Wine storage or an undercounter unit facing sealed-system work.
• A cabinet that has already had two or three unrelated failures.
• A unit whose doors, controls and panels are all tired at once.
• A kitchen that is being rebuilt anyway, where the opening is changing.

In those cases we set out what the repair is, what it costs and what it does not fix, and the decision stays yours. We do not make it on the doorstep and we do not make it for you.

When we will say do not repair it

Sometimes the answer is no, and you will get it in writing rather than as a shrug. You will have paid the $80 diagnostic and you will leave with a written account of what is wrong, which is worth having whether you replace the cabinet, sell the house with it, or ask somebody else for a second opinion. You get a written estimate before any part is ordered or any labour begins.

How old is too old

Age is the wrong question, and it is the one most often asked. The trade generally counts refrigeration of this class in decades rather than years, and a long-serving cabinet meeting its first sealed-system fault is an ordinary event rather than a verdict on the appliance. What matters is the count of separate failures, not the count of years.

A twenty-year-old cabinet with one dead fan motor is a cheap morning. A twelve-year-old cabinet on its fourth unrelated fault is a conversation. That is the distinction, and nothing about the date on the plate makes it for you.

What the diagnostic buys before any of this is decided

One flat fee to come out, test the system and tell you what is wrong. It is credited toward the repair if you go ahead with the work. Nothing above can be settled from a symptom over the phone: half of these decisions turn on which of two sealed systems has failed, and that is a measurement. Sealed-system work is carried out under EPA Section 608 certification, which federal law requires of anyone recovering refrigerant, and which is not a manufacturer credential.

Call (904) 664-4866, or read the band table in full on the what it costs page. The faults themselves have a page each under repairs, and the one that drives most of these conversations is the sealed system.