Extend the life of your laptop through proper maintenance and repair

Laptops can have a variety of different problems. At the Repair Café, experts can help you fix these problems! In almost half the cases, laptop repairs in Repair Cafés are successful. This is evident from the RepairMonitor: the online tool with which Repair Cafés keep track of their repair data.

Laptops brought to Repair Cafés are often not broken. In many cases, maintenance or explanation of using the device is sufficient to solve the problem. However, occasionally, a component may need to be replaced.

Common laptop problems

Below are the top-5 common laptop problems, as found in the RepairMonitor.

1. Battery defect / needs to be changed
2. Hardware failures / problems
3. USB ports broken
4. Software problems / software updates needed
5. Issues with starting up the laptop

In many cases, these problems are easy to solve. Want to try it yourself? Then repair platform iFixit can help you with tools, manuals and spare parts. Would you rather do it together with an expert? Then you are more than welcome at a Repair Café.

Help with laptop problems

Many Repair Cafés have one or more laptop specialists. They know a lot about complex problems and can help you. According to the RepairMonitor, in almost half the cases (46 per cent), the Repair Café manages to directly solve laptop problems. In 33 per cent of cases, we offer someone advice on how to complete the repair later on. Only in 21 per cent of all cases is the repair not successful.

Stan is one of those laptop experts. He volunteers at the Repair Café in Uden, in the Netherlands. “I enjoy volunteering at the Repair Café because I like to help people and the environment”, he says. “It’s nice to see how much waste we’ve already prevented. At present, we of Repair Café Uden have repaired one shipping container’s worth of electrical and electronic products. Otherwise, all these things would have been thrown away.”

According to Stan, mainly older people come to the Repair Café with laptop problems. They often don’t know how to work with a specific program. “In many cases, it’s something easy like a software problem. For example, how to use different email programs. I help them to install programs and show them the basic functions.”

Tips for laptop maintenance

Proper maintenance can prevent many problems with laptops. There are the top-4 maintenance tips:

1. When the battery has charged to 100 per cent, unplug it immediately
2. Regularly backup data on an external hard drive
3. Install and update anti-virus software
4. Carry your laptop in a good laptop bag to protect it if it should fall

Older laptops are easier to repair

As with other products, new models of laptops are often more complicated to repair than older ones. This is because certain parts of newer laptops cannot be replaced easily.

Stan has noticed this change during his years at the Repair Café too. “Generally, I can say that older laptops are easier to repair. With laptops from 10 years ago, you could change the battery, replace the hard drive and even the keyboard. Also, the screw locations were marked. You can no longer repair anything yourself with for instance, the new MacBook. Even repairers from the Apple Store often don’t have the necessary parts. This makes repairing increasingly difficult, not only for laptops but also for tablets and smartphones.”

According to the RepairMonitor, HP, Acer, and Asus are the most popular laptop brands in the Repair Café.

Top 5 laptop brands at Repair Cafés

Repair your laptop yourself or drop by the Repair Café!

Do you need help repairing your laptop? Then come to a Repair Café in your area. Want to do the repair yourself? Then find a repair guide at iFixit! You can also use these step-by-step manuals to prepare your visit to the Repair Café. This way you can read what to expect.

Enjoy your coffee maker for longer. Come to the Repair Café for repairs or advice!

Coffee makers are one of the products visitors bring to the Repair Café most often. This is not so strange: coffee is essential to many people. Coffee makers are often used daily and not always with care. These two things contribute to the fact that coffee makers occasionally break down.

Fortunately, repairers in all Repair Cafés have a lot of experience repairing all kinds of coffee makers. In 60 percent of cases, the repairs are also successful, according to the RepairMonitor, in which Repair Cafés register their repair data. In a further 14 percent of cases, the owner receives advice, which they can use to complete the repair later. So, it certainly makes sense to come to the Repair Café when your coffee maker no longer works (as well as it should)!

Common problems with coffee makers

The Repair Café often solves the ten problems listed below with ease:

• water doesn’t flow
• water doesn’t heat up
• switch or other buttons don’t work
• water leaks
• hot plate doesn’t heat up
• machine only serves half cups
• lights keep flashing
• the appliance makes a noise
• the appliance is dirty
• problem with cord or plug

Solutions for problems with coffee makers

Repairers report in the RepairMonitor that they can often solve the problems by carrying out the following actions:

• cleaning
• descaling
• replacing parts, like brewing unit, o-rings, hose, rubber, valve, condenser, fuse…
• reassembling or fixing existing parts

Reasons why coffee maker repairs fail

When coffee machine repairs fail (29 percent of cases), it is often because a part has burned through or broken off or because there has been a short circuit. Sometimes, repairers cannot open the machine or find spare parts.

Common coffee maker brands

Repair Café repairers can handle all brands of coffee machines. The brands listed below are the ones they have the most experience with, according to the RepairMonitor:

• Philips (especially the Senseo)
• Nespresso
• Krups (also Krups-Nespresso)
• Magimix (also Magimix-Nespresso)
• Bosch
• Braun
• DeLonghi
• Siemens

Gradually fewer Senseos, more Nespressos

In the RepairMonitor, the Philips Senseo is still the most frequently registered coffee maker. Because visitors have so often brought them in, Repair Café repairers now have a solution for most Senseo problems. But in recent years, the Repair Cafés have seen the number of Senseos decline. “We now see more and more Nespressos coming in,” says Frans Snijders Blok, repairer at Repair Café Bussum (the Netherlands).

Like Senseos, Nespresso machines are frequently brought in with the same problem. With the Nespresso, it is leakage. According to Frans, this is because the water pressure in the Nespresso is too high. “It is 15 bar. This only works well with a machine made of good quality material. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the Nespresso. It’s made at rock-bottom prices, and that’s at the expense of the quality of the material. That is asking for trouble.”

Nevertheless, more than 50 percent of Nespressos are still successfully repaired, the RepairMonitor shows. Here too, cleaning and descaling are often enough to solve the problem. So even with a Nespresso, a visit to the Repair Café is undoubtedly worthwhile!

Do not use cleaning vinegar but citric acid to descale your coffee maker

Coffee maker maintenance tips

Do you want to enjoy your coffee maker for longer? Then take good care of it. Some essential tips from the Repair Café are:

• Regularly clean an appliance. This prevents, for example, dirt from accumulating and causing blockages;
• Descale it with citric acid or another agent recommended by the manufacturer. Do not use cleaning vinegar – it is too aggressive;
• Remove the plug from the socket after use. By preventing a device from being permanently connected to the power network, you can significantly prolong its life;
• Do you have a coffee maker in your mobile home, caravan or holiday home? Take it out before the winter. This way, you can avoid damage caused by freezing.

Repair your coffee maker yourself or drop by the Repair Café!

Do you need help repairing your coffee maker? Then come to a Repair Café in your area. Want to do the repair yourself? Then find a repair guide at iFixit! You can also use these step-by-step manuals to prepare your visit to the Repair Café. This way you can read what to expect. 

Have your chairs or table repaired and extend their lifespan!

Do you have a crooked footstool at home? Or a chair missing a leg? Bring it to the Repair Café! If you don’t try, it won’t be repaired. What’s more, our repairers can quickly fix simple problems such as broken or wobbly legs. After that, your furniture will be usable for some time to come.

When people bring furniture to a Repair Café, its often chairs and footstools. A rickety room chair, an office chair with a loose backrest, a dining table chair with a broken leg… 75 per cent of the chairs that come in are successfully repaired. The same applies to the other pieces of furniture that our repairers have worked on. Even benches and tables have a chance of being successfully repaired!

Learning to repair furniture

A visit to the Repair Café often results in more than just a repaired table or chair. You also gain knowledge that can be useful for a lifetime. Douwe van der Helm repairs, among other things, furniture in the Repair Café Steenwijkerland (the Netherlands), and he considers the transfer of that knowledge to be essential.

“That’s why we always do the repairs together with the owner of the things. We ask them to observe and to help. For example, they see us gluing a leg to a footstool or chair, but they may never have heard of two-component glue. Well, then we write down what brand they need and where you can buy it, and then they can do it themselves next time.”

Furniture maintenance

Furniture can last a very long time, but it’s essential to maintain it properly. Unfortunately, people often don’t know how to do that. That, too, is something the repairers like to teach. Douwe: “Furniture is made of all sorts of materials: leather, wood, fabric, reed. These materials all need specific treatment. For example, thatch must be moistened with a plant sprayer every now and then; otherwise, it dries out. With wooden furniture, it’s essential to check the joints once or twice a year. Tighten the screws when necessary.”

Douwe has another golden tip for chairs. “If there are two or three of you and you have six dining table chairs, alternate using them. So, make sure you don’t sit on the same chair all the time.” Each piece of furniture requires specific maintenance. “For leather furniture, there are special repair kits available in countless colours. With them, you can easily repair a leather sofa or chair”, Douwe says.

He also has a tip for fabric furniture: “Spray it with stain protection spray. If you spill something on your furniture, it doesn’t get into the fabric but stays on as drops. Then you can wipe it off with a wet cloth. Many people don’t know that. Of course, that has little to do with repairing, but it’s important for the lifespan of your furniture.”

Repair your furniture yourself or drop by the Repair Café!

Do you need help repairing your furniture? Then come to a Repair Café in your area. Want to do the repair yourself? Then find a repair guide at iFixit! You can also use these step-by-step manuals to prepare your visit to the Repair Café. This way you can read what to expect.

Sharpen your knives, scissors and garden tools

You don’t need to throw away kitchen knives and scissors that are no longer sharp. If you sharpen them, they will again last a long time. Not all Repair Cafés have a knife sharpener, but our repairers are eager to learn. Who knows, they may want to learn more about sharpening knives and scissors when a visitor brings them in.

For many people, it’s an eye-opener that you can sharpen blunt knives, scissors and garden tools quite easily. Once they know there’s a knife sharpener in a Repair Café, it often spreads like wildfire.

And rightly so! Knife and scissor repairs are almost always a success at the Repair Café. The repair rate for these types of repairs is 98 per cent, according to our RepairMonitor. In this online system, Repair Café repairers keep track of their repairs and whether they are successful. This has always been the case with knives and scissors.

Buying grindstones for sharpening knives and scissors

Albert Haan from Repair Café Zwolle-Assendorp (the Netherlands) always brings his own sharpening equipment. Sharpening knives and scissors is a hobby that got out of hand for him, and in the meantime, he has started his own business. “The Repair Café in Assendorp is located in a community centre, which also has a small restaurant”, says Albert. “At one point, the cook was complaining about his blunt knives. Then I thought: you know what, next time I’ll bring my sharpening stones. Of course, the visitors saw that, and so I started sharpening more knives and scissors.”

Albert is not a fan of using knife sharpeners where you must run the knife through. According to him, they often cause a knife to be sharpened unevenly. “You often sharpen the first part the most because there you unintentionally press the hardest. That means your knife is sharpest at the handle and the least sharp at the tip.”

Knife sharpening tips

Albert recommends Japanese whetstones instead. These are rectangular blocks grinding stone. “Many people know them. They are grey and light grey. You can buy them at the hardware store and you can get your knives pretty sharp with them.” With these sharpening stones, it’s vital to always sharpen the knife at the same angle. “You have to keep the angle constant and go over the stone with it. If you start twisting your knife, you’ll never get it sharp.”

There are all kinds of tutorials and instructional videos available on the internet about sharpening knives.

Even century-old knives can be sharpened. Albert: “One day, a man came to our Repair Café with a very old butcher’s knife. It was perhaps a hundred years old and had always been in the family. He had never dared taking it to the sharpener because he was worried they’d mess it up. But, in the Repair Café, he had seen me working several times. It gave him the confidence to bring his knife. So, I sharpened that knife, which before hadn’t cut for years. He was thrilled. Not necessarily because of the knife, but mainly because of its family history.”

Sharpen your knives and scissors yourself or drop by the Repair Café!

Do you need help sharpening blunt knives and scissors? Then come to a Repair Café in your area. Want to do the repair yourself? Then find a repair guide at iFixit! You can also use these step-by-step manuals to prepare your visit to the Repair Café. This way you can read what to expect.

Don’t just throw away broken toys. Instead, go to a Repair Café in your neighbourhood!

Many people don’t like to throw toys away. Children (and parents) are often attached to specific dolls or cuddly toys, a battery-operated train or a remote-controlled car. Fortunately, in many cases, toys can be repaired very well. Bring your broken things to a Repair Café and find out for yourself!

We successfully repair electric and electronic toys in 70 per cent of cases, according to our RepairMonitor, an online system where repairers keep track of what they fix. For non-electric toys, the number is as high as 76 per cent. So, it’s a shame to throw broken toys away.

Repairing electric toys

The problem with electric toys is often the battery that’s no longer connected or a rusty circuit. “We’ve seen every possible thing that has a battery. There’s often not much wrong with it”, explains Wijnand Klaver of Repair Café Hilversum (the Netherlands). “Usually, it’s just a loose wire. Generally, you can get these things working again. Sometimes, you must repair it in such a way that you can see it’s been repaired, but that doesn’t matter at all.”

Repairing dolls and cuddly toys

Dolls and cuddly toys are often missing stuffing from the body or an eye. Often, there’s also a loose seam or a missing leg. “That’s a bit more manual work, as you don’t usually use a sewing machine to fix it”, says Marion van den Akker of Repair Café Oostzaan (Netherlands).

Repairing toys is often gratifying work, according to both Wijnand and Marion. “It can mean a lot to someone,” says Wijnand. “At one point, an older woman came to us. She’d brought a doll from 1950 that she had played with herself. The doll had been broken for thirty years, but we managed to put it back together with a lot of fiddling and polishing. She was delighted when we repaired the doll because now her grandchild could play with it.”

Learning to make repairs together

Marion: “You can’t always estimate what something means to someone. Sometimes, you do a minimal thing, and people are completely overwhelmed by it. For example, for someone, we once fixed a cuddly toy missing, I think, its arm or leg. And the lady was so excited that you almost thought: ‘how come?’ While we hadn’t done all that much. That’s something I remember.”

Marion and Wijnand like to repair, but they enjoy it even more when people actively think and help. “The nicer repairs are when people come up with things they’ve already started doing themselves”, says Wijnand. “I think it’s imperative to include people in the repair process. So much knowledge gets lost; we have to watch out for that.”

“That’s our policy anyway”, Marion explains. “We don’t like to bring you in, leave you and come back again. The idea is that you come and sit with us, with a cup of coffee or tea. We want the repair to be a social activity and to make people aware that things can be repaired.”

Repair toys yourself or drop by the Repair Café!

Do you need help repairing toys? Then come to a Repair Café in your area. Want to do the repair yourself? Then find a repair guide at iFixit! You can also use these step-by-step manuals to prepare your visit to the Repair Café. This way you can read what to expect.