A QUIET TOOL
Repair, or replace?
A repair quote looks expensive because it arrives all at once. A replacement looks cheap because its years are imagined. Both are only prices divided by spans — so divide them, and read the two numbers side by side.
Repaired
$12.00 / year
Replaced
$18.75 / year
Nothing you type leaves your browser. The arithmetic runs on this page alone; "copy a link" simply puts your numbers in the URL so you can return to them.
What the number does not say
The arithmetic prices the spans; it cannot weigh what a repair keeps. A repaired thing is a known quantity — its fit, its history, its remaining faults — where a replacement resets the clock on all three. And the question repeats: an object that can be repaired once can usually be repaired again, so the repaired column tends to win twice. The reverse also holds. A repair that buys a year or two on a thing that cannot be repaired again is not maintenance; it is rebuying the object in instalments.
Whether a thing can be repaired is decided long before the quote — at the seam, the bolt, and the maker's parts shelf. Records where the repair is the whole argument:
- The Goodyear-welt boot — resoled, not retired; the seam a cobbler can reopen.
- The passive speaker — re-foamed for under $25, decades on.
- The wired headphone — every part replaceable since 1997.
- The hardwood bed frame — comes apart at the bolt, goes back square.
And for the purchase itself — the durable thing against the cheap one rebought — the companion tool: the cost-per-year calculator.