A Repair-vs-Replace Worksheet for Property Managers

A repair-vs-replace worksheet needs six inputs: the appliance's age, its expected life, the repair quote, the installed cost of a replacement, what you've already spent on it recently, and how long the unit would be down either way. From those, two ratios and one rule give you a recommendation you can defend to an owner in two sentences.

Below is the worksheet, the spreadsheet formulas, and how to read what it tells you.

Why bother with a worksheet

Because the decision usually gets made on the phone, with a tenant waiting, by whoever happens to pick up. One manager approves the repair because it's under their limit. Another replaces a unit that had years left in it. Neither is wrong on its own, but across a portfolio you end up with no consistent policy and no record of why anything was decided.

A worksheet makes the call repeatable. It also gives you something to show the owner other than "the technician thought so."

It doesn't replace judgment. It just makes you do the arithmetic before you use it.

The six inputs

Collect these before you decide. Most of them come from the technician's diagnosis and your own records.

Expected life is the one people guess at. Use published figures and lean conservative. Our note on how long appliances last in rental units has a table and explains why rentals tend to land at the low end.

The replacement cost is the one people get wrong. A shelf price is not an installed price. Get the real number, including the hookup and the carry up the stairs.

The two ratios

Life used

Age divided by expected life. A dishwasher that's 6 years old with an expected life of 9 has used about two-thirds of its life.

Repair ratio

The repair quote plus recent repairs, divided by the installed replacement cost. Counting the recent repairs is what stops you approving one reasonable repair after another on a machine that's quietly failing. If you spent a fifth of the replacement cost on this fridge last year and the new quote is another third, the ratio is a little over half, not a third.

The rule

Combine the two ratios like this:

1. Life used under one-third: repair. A young appliance is almost always worth fixing, and you should check whether it's still under warranty before paying for anything.
2. Life used between one-third and two-thirds: repair if the repair ratio is 50% or less. Replace if it's over.
3. Life used over two-thirds: repair only if the repair ratio is under 25%. Otherwise replace.

This is the same logic as the 50% rule for rental appliances, written so a spreadsheet can apply it.

Setting it up in a spreadsheet

One row per decision. In Excel or Google Sheets, with the inputs in columns A to H:

A  Building / unit
B  Appliance (type, brand, model)
C  Age in years
D  Expected life in years
E  Repair quote
F  Installed replacement cost
G  Repairs on this appliance in the last 24 months
H  Days down: repair vs. replace (note, e.g. "3 vs 8")

I  Life used        =C2/D2
J  Repair ratio     =(E2+G2)/F2
K  Recommendation   =IF(I2<1/3,"Repair",IF(I2<2/3,IF(J2<=0.5,"Repair","Replace"),IF(J2<0.25,"Repair","Replace")))
L  Override and reason (typed by hand)

Format columns I and J as percentages. Fill the formulas down.

Column L matters more than it looks. When you go against the formula, write down why. After six months you'll have a record of your exceptions, and you'll see whether they were good calls.

A worked example

Say a refrigerator in a one-bedroom is 11 years old. You're working from an expected life of 13 years, so life used is about 85%. The technician finds a failed evaporator fan motor, and the quote comes to 12% of what an installed replacement would cost. There have been no other repairs on it in the last two years.

Life used is over two-thirds, so the bar is a repair ratio under 25%. At 12%, the worksheet says repair. That matches common sense: a fan motor is a small part on a machine that may still have a few years left.

Now change one thing. The diagnosis is a sealed-system leak, and the quote is 55% of replacement. Same fridge, same age. The worksheet says replace, and again it's hard to argue with.

The useful cases are the ones in between. A 7-year-old washer with a 40% repair ratio, or a 10-year-old range where a repair came in at 30% after a previous repair last spring. Those are the calls that go differently depending on who answers the phone, and the worksheet makes them consistent.

When to override the result

The formula only sees money and age. A few situations should override it, and each deserves a line in column L.

Downtime. If the repair part is backordered for weeks and a replacement can be installed in days, replacing may be the better service to the tenant, even when the numbers favor repair.

Safety. If the fault involves a gas leak at the valve or scorched wiring on an old unit, lean toward replacement unless you're confident in the repair and the rest of the appliance.

Warranty. A unit under warranty should go to the warranty first, once you've confirmed the terms cover rental or multifamily use.

Turnover timing. If the apartment turns over soon, a cheap repair now plus a planned replacement during the turnover can beat an emergency purchase.

Standardization. If replacing lets you match the model used in the rest of the building, that has real value in parts and service later on. The formula doesn't see it, but you should.

How to present it to the owner

Owners and boards don't want the spreadsheet. They want the conclusion and enough of the reason to trust it. Two sentences usually do it:

The refrigerator in 4C is 11 years old with an expected life of about 13, and the repair would cost more than half the price of an installed replacement. We recommend replacing it, and can have the new unit in within a week.

Or, the other way:

The dishwasher in 2B is 4 years old and the repair is about a fifth of the replacement cost, so we're going ahead with the repair. The part is on order and the tenant has been told to expect us Thursday.

If an owner pushes back, you have the row in the sheet with every number in it.

Getting the inputs you need

The worksheet is only as good as the diagnosis behind it. You need the fault, the part, whether it's in stock, an all-in quote, and an honest opinion on the rest of the machine.

That's how we report to property managers. The service call ($145 and up) covers the visit and the on-site diagnosis, repairs are quoted for your approval before any work starts, and if replacing makes more sense we'll tell you and leave the call to you. Our property managers page explains how work orders, access and per-building invoicing work with us.

Next step

Copy the columns above into a sheet today and use it on the next broken appliance that comes in. When you need a diagnosis with real numbers in it, open a work order for the unit.