Economy-conscious consumers flood repair shops

The Hoover upright that Robert Jones dropped off at Arthur Farina's vacuum repair shop in Havertown yesterday had been coughing out smoke at his mother's house.

"Give me a call tomorrow afternoon and I'll give you a price on it," Farina told Jones.

A few years ago when times were better, Jones would have solved the problem by doing something that had become commonplace in prerecession days: He would have replaced the $300 vacuum with a new one.

But such spendthrift solutions are becoming a faint memory, it seems, as consumers hold on to whatever cash they can and jam appliance-repair shops to make their wares last a wee bit longer.

The recession has triggered a surge in appliance fix-it jobs. The change in thinking, caused by consumer squeamishness, is keeping old-school guys like Farina and his tiny Darby Road shop busy enough with service work to make up for the fact that he is selling fewer new products. It is keeping others open all hours just to keep up with demand.

Service jobs are up 20 percent over the same time last year, Farina said. The same is true at repair shops across the country and even around the corner, where Jones, Farina's vacuum customer, sells commercial-grade lawn mowers, but is doing way more repair jobs than sales.

"Right now, I'm very heavy on repairs," said Jones, 46, who runs his family's fourth-generation landscaping machinery shop, R.J. Power Equipment, on Eagle Road. Rather than trading in for a new $10,000 mower, which was the norm just a few years ago, landscaping companies are opting for $2,500 motor repairs.

On a household level, the same can be said for people who own vacuum cleaners, expensive coffeemakers, and sewing machines. Instead of dashing off to a department store or big box like Wal-Mart for a new one, customers are making pit stops at repair shops.

"My service has probably tripled to quintupled in the last five months," said Ralph Grimaldi, owner of Cross Bay Appliance Services in Queens, N.Y., where he repairs vacuum cleaners, coffeemakers, and other appliances.

The surge became noticeable soon after Wall Street's devastating tumble last fall, he said.

"I would probably say I noticed it within about three weeks of the market crash," said Grimaldi, former president of the National Appliance Service Association.

He has hired more staff and extended shop hours to seven days a week. "We actually lock the doors so we can actually get the work done."

Farina, 55, of Drexel Hill, a longtime appliance repairman who bought his business, Havertown Vacuum Cleaner, four years ago and survived a brain tumor a year ago - "I feel better than ever!" - would be in trouble right now if all he did was sell vacuums.

"I'm noticing all the public is realizing, 'Let's try to get a quick fix on this machine instead of buying a new machine,' " he said.

"They're bringing mostly the cheaper machines that they just bought, say, a year ago," he said.

There are plenty of pricey broken models, too, that share the floor space with Farina's little dog and shop companion, Duchess - including a $600 Dyson that he hoped to fix for $89.

"There's more money in sales, obviously," he said, "but I've been keeping afloat because of my service."

When it costs more to fix the vacuum than to replace it, Farina gives customers the skinny on the models out there - what they cost, what their "Achilles' heels" are (Farina says every vacuum has a "weak spot" - he knows them well because he works in them) and what the best values are.

Farina gives out free estimates and is averaging seven or eight new repair jobs a week.

"It's just been going up and up and up," he said.