TV repair questions, answered without the sales pitch

It depends on the fault. Power supply and backlight repairs — the two most common — are among the more affordable, and both cost a small fraction of a new television. We diagnose first, then give you a fixed price before any work starts. Our cost guide sets out realistic ranges.

No. We do not repair cracked, shattered or physically damaged panels, and we do not buy broken televisions. A replacement panel almost always costs more than a new set of the same size. Full explanation here.

Almost certainly not — this is the classic backlight failure. Shine a bright torch at a sharp angle across the screen. If you can faintly see a picture, the panel is alive and only the LED backlight has failed. That is an affordable, straightforward repair.

Then it is almost certainly the power supply board. The damage is done not by the outage but by the surge when the power returns, and the power board stands directly in its path. It is the most common television fault in Gauteng and one of the most repairable.

We come to you. Transporting a large flat-screen is the most common way one gets genuinely broken, so we bring the workshop to the television instead. The great majority of faults are diagnosed and repaired on site.

Often the same day, particularly if you phone in the morning, you are in one of our core areas, and the fault is a common one we carry parts for. We will always give you an honest answer rather than promising a slot we cannot keep.

We charge for the diagnostic assessment, because finding the real fault is skilled work that takes time. If you proceed with the repair, that fee is taken into account in the final price. You will know the number before we come out.

Then you pay for the diagnosis and nothing else, and we will tell you plainly why. If the set is not worth repairing, we will say so — it costs us the job and it is the right thing to do.

Every major brand: Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, TCL, Skyworth, Sinotec, Panasonic, Philips, Toshiba and Vizio, among others. See our brands page.

Yes, and they are frequently worth repairing. Plasma sustain board faults and LCD capacitor failures are both well understood and repairable, and parts for the common failures remain obtainable.

No. Burn-in is permanent degradation of the organic pixels and there is no repair for it — not by us, not by the manufacturer, not by anyone. Anybody claiming otherwise is misleading you.

Almost certainly not. If the app provider has dropped support for your television’s platform, no repair will bring the app back — but an inexpensive streaming stick will give you a fully modern platform for a small fraction of the cost of a new set. We will tell you honestly which situation you are in.

Yes. Installation, dish alignment, LNB replacement, decoder setup, Extra View, relocations and signal fault finding. And if you need the television mounted too, we can do both in one visit.

Rain fade. Every installation suffers it in a real downpour, but if yours breaks up in light rain the installation has no margin — usually a marginal dish alignment or a degrading LNB. Both are inexpensive to fix.

Yes. We identify the substrate before we drill, use the correct fixings for it, conceal the cables, and set up the whole system before we leave. See TV installation.

Yes. We are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including Sundays and public holidays.

Yes — offices, showrooms, reception areas, sports bars and guesthouses. Where a dead screen is costing you trade, tell us when you book and we will prioritise it where we genuinely can.

A decent one helps considerably. The cheap multi-plugs with a neon light do very little. We will tell you honestly what is worth buying — and we do not sell them, so we have no reason to oversell you.