Repair or replace? An expert guide to fixing or ditching eight household items

It's good for the environment and your wallet - so it's no surprise that repairing is all the rage. From vacuum cleaners to microwaves, here's what to fix and what to forget

My kettle's broken. It still boils water, but it doesn't switch off - just boils on, converting the kitchen to a sauna, wastefully, expensively. Put another way, the Polly component still functions well, but Sukey's lost it. Time to bin it, splash out on a new one. Or maybe not ...

Could it be repaired? Could I repair it? It depends on the kettle and how it was put together," says Kyle Wiens, a co-founder of iFixit, which publishes free repair guides for consumer electronics and gadgets, as well as selling kits and parts. He's speaking to me via Skype from San Luis Obispo, California, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan Never take broken for an answer" - and he thinks it sounds as if the switch is the problem.