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The Forest Row Repair Cafe aims to help reduce waste by encouraging a repair culture in our community. A repair can save time, money and waste.
The Forest Row Repair Cafe is held in The Forest Row Community Centre, Hartfield Road, Forest Row on the 3rd Saturday of every month except December.
Items we can repair include electrical, fabrics, computers, bikes, wood work, furniture, damaged books and we occasionally have someone for clocks and jewellery.
Whilst you wait for a repairer we have a delicious cafe for you to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee and a piece of homemade cake donated by local businesses.
What items can you bring to the Forest Row Repair Café?
Many different broken items are brought into each Forest Row Repair Café.
Most of them require replacing a part. The second most popular procedure is cleaning, followed by stitching a seam. This is according to the latest analysis of the RepairMonitor, the online tool for data collection in Repair Cafés worldwide.
All fabric items must be washed before you attend otherwise we may refuse to repair them. Thank you for your understanding and consideration of our repairers.
What kind of repairs can the Forest Row Repair Café carry out?
Each month the Forest Row Repair Café completes its list of all work carried out. This helps us focus our own resources on where demand is greatest.
Glueing, soldering, greasing and grinding are popular procedures.
Sometimes an item turns out not to be broken, or it is enough to explain its use or maintenance. In some cases, the repairer’s ‘magic touch’ is enough.
What are the most popular items that are brought to the Forest Row Repair Café?
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 Repair Cafés since the recent sharp rise in gas prices.
Electric heaters more popular since rise in gas prices, but fan heaters were even the highest new entry. Vacuum cleaner repairs were most often entered, followed by coffee makers and trousers.
Can I donate spare parts to the Forest Row Repair Café?
Replacement parts play a significant role in repairs that fail – the main reason being that spare parts were unavailable, not on the market or too expensive.
This shows how having spare parts is vital. The kind donations from all our customers help us buy whatever we can to help you.
But for some repairs, if the customers know what is required it is also wonderful if they can purchase the part themselves, which we can then use to repair their treasured and much-needed items.