The main thing that seems to break in our house are washing machines, and this is an incredibly simple device, so there is NO reason you should pay someone to come into your home and repair a washing machine.
Between Repair Clinic's troubleshooting guides, videos, pictures, and YouTube, you should be able to repair pretty much any household appliance. I mention this now, because our washing machine stopped moving from one part of the cycle to the next, and the obvious first conclusion is that the timer is bad. That would be wrong.
Had I not had two things:
- The wherewithal to use their troubleshooting guide and
- A multimeter (get one - you can find them at Wal-mart, Lowes, Ace, etc, for less than $40)
Anyway, to make a long story short, it was the door switch, which was #1 on the list of things to check and about $100 less than a new timer.