I've seen this many times.
Sometimes the right answer is: get an expert to look at it. You don't need a $2000 fridge, but you may need a $200 repair job to get it done fast and right.
You can learn so much by reading repair manuals & books, watching youtube videos, and being able to recognize patterns in other things you have repaired.
Doing this will save you tens of thousands of dollars over the years. Furnace, A/C, House appliances, Home repairs, Furnitures, Cars, computers, even clothes & shoes...
A 20min job is 20mins often because it took hundreds - or in the case of professionals, thousands - of hours of learning, practicing, and experimenting.
Of course everyone’s utility function is different, but my free time is at a heavy heavy premium. I’m happy to spend money where it gets me time in return.
My growth today in IT has very little to do with IT, I'm taking much lessons from other industries. Want to learn to build reliable systems, serious study the airline industry, how do they build such reliable systems? Want to learn how to troubleshoot and solve problems fast? How does your typical ER work?
There's much to learn from cross pollinating ideas from other fields. Most of us in IT are not just lovers of computers, but just builders. We are lucky to be born in this time in history, 100 yrs ago, we might be building cars or other sort of mechanical devices.
I truly do not care about repairing fridges. Not even a little bit. Yes I’m an engineer. Still don’t care. Don’t care about repairing my car either.
Some people feel so righteous about repair for some reason and it just doesn’t make sense to me. Why would someone want to impose how they spend their time on other people? If you enjoy it, that’s great keep doing it! Doesn’t mean I have to spend my time that way.
I’m just going to get the thing fixed (even if it costs more money) and just move on with my life.
To you point though, if I was really into something then I might be up for it! But fridges? Low on my list.
And then people wonder why they are miserable.
People are not owning cars, they're Ubering. People are not buying movies, they're using Netflix. People are not owning homes, they're renting and using Airbnb. People are not cleaning their spaces, they're using Task Rabbit. etc etc.. The uptick in nomad lifestyle also means not being able to carry all the tools around. People are becoming mobile and specialists; being really good at something that pays decently well but knowing less of how to do a little bit of everything because it doesn't further their career. Jack of all trades are the minority and generally curious people that love learning new things which isn't for everyone.
For me I've found once I accumulated the skill, just doing it myself was often faster and easier.
I understand the value of free time and all that, but I bet even in your day job you gradually cultivate side skills that are not your core work function, you just use them every now and again in the process of your work.
It is harder to teach kids this attitude now. So many things that interest them are seam-welded or potted or otherwise inaccessible. It's still possible though. My daughter and I disassembled old DVD drives and made laser pointers from the diodes that still worked. She was excited to take things apart after school.
If you can't borrow a tool or need it semi-regularly, I'd recommend checking out Harbor Freight if there's one nearby instead of going to the local hardware or big box store. Their tools are not the highest quality, but unless you're a contractor or serious craftsperson, they'll probably work just fine at a much lower price point.
Often a tool can cost less than getting it repaired, paying for itself in one go. And there's many things that are straightforward to fix (bikes for example).
It also takes time to arrange a repair, go there, drop it off, pick it up, realize they didn't fix the problem, do it again, etc. I often find doing this stuff myself can actually save time, and if things break on a weekend/holiday you can still salvage your plans.
In the last year I’ve done maintenance work on the dishwasher (twice), ice maker, furnace (fuse), duct work (baffle), two clogged drains (love those air-pump drain cleaners!), sliding door (leveling adjustment), vacuum (broken plastic part), doorbell (new button), several light switches (new dimmers), stopping drafts (new weatherstripping), sump pump (burned out wiring cap), painting and spackling, 2 toilet flappers, dryer thermostat and humidistat, and hanging a new flat screen.
That’s just top of my head. And there was plenty of bigger stuff I outsourced but could have potentially taken on like installing a new front door, and seal coating the driveway.
If I hired an “expert” for all of that it would have been nearly $10,000. And next year it’ll just be another list the same length of all different stuff.
As a house owner it is far easier to build a list of trades people you won't use again, than the one to hang on to.
Its simple self-centred greed really.
The best bet, IMO, is to get advice from someone who doesn't directly benefit from a bad product, but is still an expert. For example, don't take the advice of a salesman, but instead a repair guy friend.
They will sell complete new systems, when you just need a new compressor, or even a capacitor.
So a fridge I may expect to need to repair once a decade is perhaps best for the professionals, but I have e stated fixing my own washing machine and tumble dryers because they cost maybe £200 new and a fix can be in the region of £60-£120. So 2 or 3 repairs and I may as well have bought a new one, fixing it myself usually means a quicker job and always means a cheaper job. Plus now I am pretty certain that if I could call someone to fix it then I could do it myself.