Make the printer work, and keep it working.
Printers are the most annoying device in most houses. Usually it's a small fix. Sometimes the honest answer is that the thing costs more in ink than it's worth, and we'll say that too.
The printer problems we get called about
- New printer out of the box, connected to your network and to every computer and phone in the house
- The printer that worked until it didn't, and now shows as offline on one machine and fine on another
- Print jobs that queue up and never come out
- Drivers that broke after a Windows or macOS update, which happens a lot
- Scan-to-email and scan-to-folder set up so scanning doesn't mean walking a USB stick around
- Printing from an iPhone, iPad, or Android phone
- Paper feed problems, jams, and print quality that's gone off
Why wireless printing keeps breaking
A printer that drops off the network every few weeks is almost never a broken printer. It got a new address from the router, and the computer is still looking for the old one. Or the printer is on the 5GHz band it can't really hold, or on the guest network, or your phone is on one network and the printer is on another.
The fix is to give the printer a fixed address on the network and point everything at that, instead of reinstalling the printer every time it disappears. That ends the reinstall-the-printer-every-month routine.
If the printer drops out because the WiFi is weak where it sits, that's a coverage problem, not a printer problem. See WiFi installation.
When to stop feeding it ink
Cheap inkjets are sold below cost and earn it back on cartridges. If you print a few pages a month, the ink dries out between jobs and you replace cartridges you barely used. That's a machine costing you money to sit still.
We'll do the math with you: what a set of cartridges costs, how often you're buying them, and what you actually print in a year. For a lot of homes that print occasionally, a plain mono laser is cheaper over three years and doesn't dry up. For homes printing photos, it's a different answer.
We'll tell you which one you are, and we don't sell printers or ink to households, so there's nothing riding on the answer. If your current printer is fine, we'll fix it and leave it alone.
Running a business?
Office printing is a different service. We supply and manage printers and consumables for Columbus businesses, including shared devices, scan workflows, and keeping toner in stock so nobody is out at lunchtime buying a cartridge. See print and supplies.
What it costs
- Flat $85 diagnostic. We work out what's wrong, then quote the fix in writing. No work happens without your approval
- Approved work is $85 per hour, remote or on-site
- Rush and after-hours work adds a flat $85
We can often handle driver and queue problems remotely. Anything involving the network or the hardware itself is usually quicker on-site. See full pricing.
If the printer is one of several things bothering you, our home tech support page covers the rest.
Printer showing offline again?
Tell us the make and model and what it's doing. We reply to new inquiries within one business day.