How to start a repair café
A repair café is a regular, volunteer-run session where people bring broken things and fix them alongside someone who knows how. Here's what it actually takes to get one running — venue, volunteers, insurance, PAT testing and the records you'll need from session one.
The short version
- Find two or three co-organisers and a venue with tables, light and power.
- Publish what you will and won't repair before your first session.
- Arrange public liability cover, visitor disclaimers and a PAT testing routine.
- Pick one system for registration, the repair queue and PAT records.
- Promote a fixed monthly slot locally, then review the outcomes after each session.
1. Gather a small founding team
Two or three committed people is enough to start. You need someone to handle the venue and scheduling, someone to recruit and look after repairers, and someone to answer emails and messages from visitors.
Talk to groups already active locally — Men's Sheds, makerspaces, community energy groups, libraries and Transition groups often have volunteers with the right skills and a venue in mind.
2. Find a venue that fits repair work
Community centres, libraries, churches, scout huts and cafés all work. What matters is practical: plenty of tables, good lighting, accessible step-free entry, enough power sockets for soldering irons and test equipment, and somewhere for visitors to sit and wait.
Check whether the venue has its own public liability cover and what its rules are around electrical equipment. Agree a regular slot — a fixed day each month is far easier to promote than ad-hoc dates.
3. Decide what you will and won't repair
Most cafés cover small electricals, textiles and clothing, bikes, furniture, toys, jewellery and basic IT. Be explicit about exclusions — microwaves, gas appliances, anything with sealed batteries you can't safely open, and items too large to carry in.
Publish the list before your first session. It sets expectations, protects your volunteers, and stops sessions filling up with items nobody present can fix.
4. Sort insurance, safety and PAT testing
You'll want public liability insurance covering volunteer-led repair activity — check whether your venue's policy already extends to you, and speak to a broker familiar with community groups if not.
Ask every visitor to sign a simple disclaimer confirming that repairs are attempted at their own risk. For electrical items, agree a testing routine: a visual inspection before work starts, and a PAT test before the item goes home. Record who tested what.
5. Set up registration and record keeping
Every session needs a way to log who arrived, what they brought, who is working on it and what happened. Paper works for your first couple of sessions, but it gets painful quickly — items get mixed up, visitors ask for updates you can't give, and you have no record of PAT results.
This is exactly what RepairManager does: visitor registration, a live queue, repair outcomes, PAT results and a full audit log, plus a screen visitors can watch to see where their item is.
6. Promote your first session
Posters in the venue, the library and local shops still work well. Add a post in local Facebook groups and on your council's community listings, and ask the venue to include you in their newsletter.
Say what you fix, what you don't, the date and time, and that it's free or donation-based. Ask visitors to book in if you expect demand to outstrip your repairers.
7. Run the session, then review it
On the day: a welcome desk to register arrivals, clear repair stations, a waiting area with refreshments, and someone keeping an eye on the queue. Aim to have a repairer sit with each visitor rather than taking items away — people learn, and they come back.
Afterwards, look at the numbers: items brought in, fixed, partly fixed and beyond repair, plus the categories you turned away. That tells you which skills to recruit next and whether to add a second session.
What RepairManager handles for you
Steps 5 and 7 are where most new cafés lose time. RepairManager covers those parts of the session so your repairers can stay at the bench:
- Visitor and item registration at the welcome desk
- A live repair queue, with a display screen for visitors
- Pre- and post-repair PAT results recorded per item
- Repair outcomes and a full audit log for every session
It's £25 per month with a 30-day free trial — see what's included in the plan or read through the repair café software features.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to be a registered charity to run a repair café?
No. Many repair cafés run as informal community groups or as a project of an existing organisation such as a library or community centre. A constitution and a bank account help if you want to apply for grants or hold funds, but you can run your first sessions without either.
What insurance does a repair café need?
Public liability insurance covering volunteer-led repair activity is the baseline. Check whether your venue's existing policy covers your sessions before buying your own, and always ask visitors to sign a disclaimer accepting that repairs are attempted at their own risk.
Is PAT testing required at a repair café?
There is no law that says a repair café must PAT test, but it is widely treated as good practice: a visual inspection plus a PAT test before an electrical item leaves the building, with the result recorded against the item and the person who tested it.
How many volunteers do I need for a session?
A small session runs comfortably with four to six repairers, one or two people on the welcome and registration desk, and someone making tea. Recruit for breadth — electrical, textiles, bikes and IT — rather than depth in one area.
Should repairs be free?
Most repair cafés don't charge for labour and ask for a donation instead, with visitors paying for any parts. That keeps the focus on skills and waste reduction rather than competing with local repair businesses.
How do I keep track of items and repair outcomes?
Use one system for the whole session so nothing is lost between the desk and the bench. RepairManager records registration, the live queue, repair outcomes, PAT results and an audit log, and costs £25 per month with a 30-day free trial.
Planning your first session?
Set up your café in RepairManager before the doors open and you'll have registration, the queue and PAT records ready to go on day one.