Vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, and trousers/pants were the most popular items brought to Repair Cafés in 2024. The factsheet also lists the most common problems for each of these three items. For example, vacuum cleaners often had damaged cords or plugs, switches were broken, or there were motor problems.

Public dashboard with eight visualisations

The current results of the RepairMonitor can be viewed at any time via a public dashboard with eight visualisations. This dashboard provides insight into the most frequently offered products and brands, participating Repair Cafés, reasons why repairs are unsuccessful etc. Visitors can filter the results by indicators such as country, year, Repair Café and product category. They can also download the entire dataset for further independent research.

RepairMonitor is being expanded and improved

Repair Café International is taking a close look at the RepairMonitor this year. The system is being rebuilt, expanded, and improved in numerous ways. This should make it attractive for even more Repair Cafés to enter repair data and provide more information about the repairs they carry out. This should lead to a larger and better dataset.

This dataset will benefit all kinds of parties: repairers will be able to repair better, policymakers will be able to make better rules to promote repair, manufacturers will have additional tools to increase the repairability of their products, and researchers will have better data to analyse. The updated RepairMonitor is expected to be available in autumn.

More information

• Download the factsheet with the results of the RepairMonitor in 2024
• View the RepairMonitor dashboard
• Read background information about the RepairMonitor dashboard
• Check out our previous articles about the RepairMonitor
• Register your Repair Café as a RepairMonitor participant

Het bericht RepairMonitor factsheet provides insight into repair data for 2024 verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

Since the first Repair Café, community repair has grown and spread around the world. The report delves deep into the data that Repair Cafés and other community repair groups have collected over the years.

Showing that repair is possible and can be great fun

“This report shows what we, as a global movement, have reached in 15 years”, says Martine Postma of Repair Café International. “We estimate that over 4,000 community repair groups are now active globally, performing 190,000 successful repairs per year. Also, these volunteers contribute to the resilience of their community, by sharing their skills and showing their fellow citizens that repair is possible, need not be difficult or expensive and can be great fun.”

“Of course, our work is not done yet. This report also goes into the barriers that we still need to overcome. We need more repairable products and stronger legislation to support repair”, Martine stresses.

International collaboration of community repair networks

The Open Repair Alliance is an international collaboration of community repair networks. It was co-founded by Repair Café International and four other organisations in 2017. The ORA combines datasets collected by its members and draws important conclusions about the durability and repairability of our every-day products from this data. Over the last 15 years, hundreds of thousands of items have been repaired by volunteers, and more than 200,000 repair attempts have been logged in the combined ORA dataset.

The data helps the fight for the right to repair in many ways: providing evidence of barriers to repair that need to be removed, but also showing the growing enthusiasm and sense of urgency among the public for repairing your own stuff and using less of the world’s natural resources.

More information

• Download the report from the Open Repair Alliance website
• Read facts and figures about the growth of the worldwide community repair movement

Het bericht 15 years of community repair in data verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

The RepairMonitor is the online tool that Repair Cafes use to collect data about the repairs they carry out: products, brands, common problems, successful solutions… in the RepairMonitor, volunteers keep track of it all. In the system they also can, for example, give an approximate estimate of how old an item was, why the repair failed, and whether repair information was available to them.

Up-to-date results now always available

All this information is now open to the public via the RepairMonitor dashboard. There, eight visuals always provide up-to-date insight of the:

• number of registered repairs
• participating Repair Cafes
• most presented products (general and per product category)
• success rate
• most presented brands
• most active Repair Cafes
• reasons why repairs fail

The visuals can be downloaded in a pdf. In addition, everyone can download the current dataset at any time to also draw their own conclusions.

Dashboard is also accessible to policymakers, journalists and other interested parties

The RepairMonitor dashboard is open to the public. This means that policymakers, journalists, and other interested parties can also view the information and filter it as they please. Until now, they had to rely on the annual data analysis by Repair Café International. So, through the dashboard, the RepairMonitor’s unique dataset is much better unlocked!

More information

• Check out the RepairMonitor dashboard
• Register your Repair Cafe with the RepairMonitor and start collecting data!

Het bericht RepairMonitor dashboard provides insight into repair data verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

‘Magic touch’ of the repairer is sometimes all it takes

In the RepairMonitor, Repair Café volunteers indicate whether a repair was successful. If the answer is ‘yes’, they can also enter how the item was repaired. Glueing, soldering, greasing and grinding are also popular procedures. Sometimes, an item turns out not to be broken, or it is enough to explain its use or maintenance. In a few cases, the repairer’s ‘magic touch’ is enough; see word cloud below.

Main reason for repair failure: no spare parts

Replacement parts also play a significant role in repairs that fail. The main reason for unsuccessful repairs is that spare parts were unavailable. Repairers also indicate that spare parts are not on the market or are too expensive.

Electric heaters more popular since sharp rise in gas prices in 2022

The RepairMonitor clearly shows that developments on the world stage affect what we buy and how we treat our belongings. For example, electric heaters have become much more popular at the Repair Café since the sharp rise in gas prices in 2022. The fan heater was even the highest new entry into the RepairMonitor in 2022!

Vacuum cleaner repairs were most often entered into the RepairMonitor in 2022, followed by coffee maker repairs and trouser repairs. This makes the top three popular products almost identical to the lists in 2021 and 2020.

More information

Every year, Repair Café International compiles the most striking results from the RepairMonitor in a fact sheet. Do you, for example, want to know which common brand has the highest success rate of repairs at the Repair Café? And which products and brands we’re least able to fix? Then download the fact sheet:

• RepairMonitor factsheet 2022 English

Also, read the news articles on previous RepairMonitor analyses:

• RepairMonitor analyses 2021
• RepairMonitor analyses 2020
• RepairMonitor analyses 2019
• RepairMonitor analyses 2018

And view the entire dataset on which the analysis is based.

Would you also like to start collecting data through the RepairMonitor? Then sign up your Repair Café!

Het bericht RepairMonitor: replacing a part is most common procedure verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

Het bericht Repairing laptops verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

Het bericht RepairMonitor: spare parts crucial for better repair verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

Far less repairs recorded

In 2020, volunteers entered only 5,500 repairs in the RepairMonitor: far less than in 2018 and 2019. This is not surprising; due to the lockdown, Repair Cafés in most countries were at a standstill for months starting in mid-March. Repairing together was not permitted.

Repairing was even more popular than ever

Yet, in the first months of 2020, the number of repairs carried out was higher than in the same period of 2019.

Long queues at waste recycling centres

Repair Café International is afraid that in the rest of 2020, many items were unjustly thrown away. “From the start of the lockdown, we’ve seen long row of cars at recycling centres and waste stations”, says director Martine Postma. “People cleaned up their homes and threw things away en masse during the pandemic. Even things that could have been repaired in the Repair Café or that could have been made to work perfectly again with a bit of care and maintenance.”

High demand for repair services

For this reason, Martine believes it’s essential that Repair Cafés be allowed to reopen quickly. “The RepairMonitor shows once again that they meet a huge need. More and more people want to repair things and like to get some help with that at a Repair Café. Given the circular economy, they should be getting that support again as soon as possible.”

More results from the RepairMonitor

Do you want to know which items the Repair Cafés in your country see most often? And which item is most often successfully repaired? Our factsheet contains many more results from 2020 and previous years. Download the factsheet here:

• Factsheet RepairMonitor A4 format
• Factsheet RepairMonitor A3 format

Het bericht RepairMonitor: much less repaired in 2020 verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

Recently, our UK partner The Restart Project has launched “PrintCat”, a fun opportunity for everyone to get involved in analysing data on over 800 broken printers brought to Repair Cafes, Fixit Clinics and Restart Parties around the world.

We all know that printers can be frustrating, easy to break and hard to fix. We want to understand why printers fail so that we can tell policymakers how future models can be made easier to repair. Repair reduces waste and lessens the strain on our planet’s resources.

How you can get involved

Head over to PrintCat and join the investigation. You’ll be presented with information about a broken printer and you’ll be able to select the most appropriate fault from a comprehensive list.

PrintCat presents you with information about a broken printer. You can select the most appropriate fault from a comprehensive list.

Once you’ve selected an option, you’ll be presented with information on another printer. The more printer faults you can categorise, the more we learn! PrintCat shows each printer to three people to help confirm the right category. If you want to learn more, you can join a conversation about it.

Why printers, and why now

Until now, there’s not been any regulation on printers’ repairability. Since 2012, printers manufacturers have had a “voluntary agreement” at EU-level, aiming to “reduce the environmental footprint” of printers, and exempting them from formal regulation. Manufacturers are currently discussing a new version of the agreement, and the draft version we’ve seen is extremely weak on repair. If approved, manufacturers would not commit to make spare parts available for printers priced below € 350.

What we hope to achieve

Most printers brought to community repair events fit in this category, so we thought it would be worth exploring why they fail. The European Commission could reject the voluntary agreement proposed by the industry, and decide to develop regulations on printers.

We hope our findings will help make the case for more ambitious measures tackling repairability of printers.

And we also hope many people will enjoy contributing to PrintCat and learning more about why printers fail. Over the next few months, there will be more opportunities to analyse data collected at repair events. We’ll keep you posted!

Het bericht Help us learn more about printers verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

Most common problems with sewing machines

Sewing machines often don’t work because people don’t use them properly. This becomes clear when looking at the top 5 most common problem with sewing machines, found in the RepairMonitor:

1. Tension broken or too high/low
2. Broken/tangled bobbin winder
3. Needle adjustments/stuck
4. Needs cleaning and/or oiling
5. Broken gear

Fortunately, sewing machine specialists are present in most Repair Cafés. They know a lot about the right settings and can help you on your way.

In almost half of all repairs (49%), Repair Café repairers graded the repairability of the product as a 7 or higher (from a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest). In only 11% of registered sewing machine repairs the repairer was not able to fix the problem. In 16% of the registered repairs, the sewing machine was ‘half repaired’. In such cases, the owner was given advice on how to solve the problem at home, or which spare part was needed to complete the repair.

Singer, Pfaff and Husqvarna sewing machines are popular

According to the data in the RepairMonitor, people come mainly with sewing machines from Singer, Pfaff and Husqvarna (see Figure 1). Models from the brands Toyota and Lewenstein are likewise popular.

Solutions for sewing machine problems

When sewing machines are successfully repaired, in many cases one of the following things was done:

1. Cleaning and lubricating the sewing machine
2. Choosing the right thread tension
3. Adjusting and given tips for maintenance
4. Foot pedals fixed
5. Coils and gears were replaced.

With a mechanical sewing machine, you stand a good chance of a successful repair at a Repair Café!

Properly setting up your sewing machine

Repair Café Nieuwegein (the Netherlands) has a sewing machine specialist: volunteer Marieke. “People often don’t know how to do stitching”, she says. According to Marieke, people often thread the thread incorrectly out of ignorance. The manual of the sewing machine or internet can offer a solution. Make sure to use the same yarn above and below and always re-tension the thread before sewing. Always use the correct needle and make sure it is clean. A good needle is a needle that is sharp. Also put the coil in well. If the bobbin is not properly seated in the bobbin case, the needle will not go back and forth, preventing sewing.

It’s important to service sewing machines

As with all devices, maintenance is also important with sewing machines.

1. Clean your sewing machine regularly.
2. Make sure you take the power off before cleaning.
3. You can clean a sewing machine by taking the frame apart.
4. Dust can then be easily removed. This way, you will also become familiar with the inside of your machine.

Cleaning a device is a good start to understanding it. Moving parts can be lubricated with sewing machine oil. If you have a self-lubricating sewing machine you don’t have to; these machines continue to work well on their own.

Newer machines are less repairable

Newer sewing machines are often much less repairable than older models, according to Repair Café repairers. This can also be seen in Figure 2, which represents the success rates of sewing machine repairs registered in the RepairMonitor, grouped by how old the machines are. Sewing machines which have been produced before the 2000s have a higher repairability than the newer once.

Marieke notices that people often have to return the newer machines to the specialist in case of problems. In such cases, a new chip often has to be inserted. You cannot easily tinker with such machines yourself. That is a pity, says Marieke. Few young people with a sewing machine visit Marieke in her Repair Café. It is often older women who don’t know how to handle their sewing machine anymore.

Websites about sewing machines

Fortunately, there are more and more good sewing machine websites. Marieke often visits the Matri website. It has a whole <step-by-step-maintenance plan> with clear images and many sewing machines parts. Furthermore, it provides sewing tips as well as a forum with solutions to common sewing machine problems. When it comes to right maintenance , then this website provides a detailed description of how to take care of your sewing machine.

If you own a Pfaff sewing machine, there is also the possibility of visiting their website. Here you can enter your machine name and find the manual online.

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

Do you need help repairing your sewing machine? 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 guides to prepare your visit to the Repair Café. This way you can read what to expect. 

Het bericht Sewing machine broken? Repair Café fixes! verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.

Necklaces, bracelets and earrings are more and more often found in Repair Cafés and there’s a good chance that your jewelry can be repaired too. In more than 80 percent of all registered cases, jewelry was successfully repaired (see Figure 1).

In 6% of the cases, the visitor got advice on how to repair the item at home. In only 11 percent of the cases, a repair did not succeed.

Jewelry is becoming popular in the RepairMonitor

That jewelry is brought to Repair Cafés more often, can also be seen in the RepairMonitor, our international tool for data collection. The number of jewelry repairs in the RepairMonitor almost quadrupled in 2019 compared to 2018, as can be seen in Figure 2.

Top 5 common problems with jewelry

These are the top 5 common problems with jewelry, according to the RepairMonitor:

1. Lock/clasp broken
2. Chain/beads broken
3. Chain/Thread too long for the number of beads
4. Ring damage
5. Loose/missing pearl/stones.

Various Repair Cafés in Canada are experienced in jewelry repairs. For this article, we spoke to Melina Maia of MetroVan Repair Café in Vancouver and Barbara Ferris of Maple Ridge Repair Café, two volunteers who repair jewelry.

“People mostly bring items in with broken clasps or chains. Sometimes there is a stone or pearl missing, which we can easily glue back on”, says Melina. For more than half of all 287 jewelry repairs in the RepairMonitor, the repairer assessed the repairability of the item as 7 or higher (on a 1 to 10 scale). This indicates that jewelry is generally easy to fix.

Storytelling jewelry

Jewelry are products that are often passed on in families for generations and often have much sentimental value. “I love repairing jewelry at the Repair Café, because I know that in many cases there is a touching story behind it. One time, a girl came in who had the ash of her deceased friend carried in a heart-shaped hanger on a necklace. That was very touching”, Melina says. “I think if it is regular jewelry, most people would not care to get it repaired. That’s why jewelry repairs are always so special”, she adds.

Barbara, one of the main jewelry repair volunteers at Maple Ridge Repair Café, has similar experiences. She once repaired a bracelet for an elderly lady, who had received it as a gift from her father in 1942. “It was a beautiful bracelet with an enamel (fused glass) that had interlocking links and the crests of every province in Canada. It was really old and silver. I was able to fix it and she was going to pass it on to her granddaughter.”

Top 4 solutions of jewelry repairs

The RepairMonitor mentions the following top 4 solutions for broken jewelry:

1. Rethreaded/fixed clasp
2. Replaced chain
3. Glued stone/ pearl
4. New clasp attached.

These solutions are also found in Melina’s and Barbara’s Repair Cafés. “When jewelry breaks, we often just have to replace the broken clasps or add a chain. That is why we already have a lot of clasps ready at our Repair Café”, Melina from Vancouver mentions.

Melina taught herself to repair jewelry through her passion for upcycling and zero waste. “I am not an expert when it comes to jewelry repairs, but most of the time it is not that difficult. I first tried with my own and watched a few videos online”, she says.

Three steps for repairing broken jewelry

Barbara from Maple Ridge Repair Café is a schooled jeweler and the expert when it comes to determining which material the jewelry is made of. “We repair jewelry that jewelers will not repair”, she says. “Most jewelers only repair high-value gold or silver jewelry, not metal, for example.”

When repairing broken jewelry, Barbara sticks to the following steps:

1. Examine the material of the jewelry (gold, silver, bronze, etc.)
2. Determine what is wrong with the jewelry or what needs to be replaced (e.g. broken clasp, chain or missing stone)
3. Get the right tools. To repair jewelry, you need tools that are quite fine. Small pliers (see Image 1) are ideal for jewelry repairs. These can be bought at any hobby store. Household items such as a knitting needle or a wire can be helpful as well.

Jewelry maintenance tips

Do you have pieces of jewelry that you would like to pass on to future generations in your family? Melina and Barbara have three main tips on how to make your jewelry long-lasting:

Right storage

Storing jewellery the right way is very important. “Most people just put their jewelry in a drawer. It would help a lot to put necklaces and bracelets in a fabric cloth, for example. Hanging them would also be great, as it would prevent the chain from getting tangled”, Melina says. She also mentions that closing jewelry before putting away can help as well. Barbara, for example, hangs her bracelets on toilet paper tubes, which can also be easily made at home.

Correct cleaning products 

Cleaning your jewelry once a year will also maintain it for longer. Ideally use soapy water which does not contain a lot of chemicals. Clean your jewelry carefully using a soft cloth or toothbrush. Barbara furthermore recommends getting a polishing rouge. This is a compound which is often used by jewelers to polish their jewelry.

Another insider tip is to use baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). “Mixing the baking soda with a little bit of water, creates a great paste in which the jewelry should be gently rubbed in. However, make sure that the paste does not touch the stones of the jewelry”, Barbara shares.

Upcycling

With some jewelry, it is simply not possible to restore the piece to its original state. But sometimes, if something is broken it can be used to create something new. Barbara chose this solution when a woman came by who had lost a few earrings. She then created a bracelet out of all the single earrings, instead of trying to repair them.

Repair your jewelry yourself or drop by the Repair Café!

Do you need help repairing your necklace, bracelet or earrings? 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 guides to prepare your visit to the Repair Café. This way you can read what to expect. 

Het bericht Jewelry broken? Repair Café fixes! verscheen eerst op Repaircafe.