c/appliance-repairers

PSA: I tried using a $15 multimeter from Harbor Freight on a tricky fridge compressor and got a false reading

The compressor on a 5-year-old Whirlpool was short cycling, and my usual Fluke was in the truck, so I grabbed the cheap meter from my bag to check the windings. It showed an open circuit, but when I swapped to the good meter, it read a solid 12 ohms, meaning the compressor was actually fine and the problem was the overload. Has anyone else had a specific job where a budget tool gave you bad data that almost sent you down the wrong path?

Showerthought: I thought those cheap thermal fuses from online were junk, but one just saved a dryer in my own house.

Had a Kenmore gas dryer go down last week, and the only fuse I had on hand was a generic $3 part from a bulk order I was sure would fail fast. It's been running perfect for 8 days now, which has me rethinking my whole parts sourcing. Anyone else have a brand they swore off that actually held up?

Just read a repair manual from 1992 and the labor time for a dryer belt blew my mind

I was cleaning out my truck and found this old Maytag service guide from 1992. I flipped it open and saw the flat rate time for a dryer belt replacement was listed as 1.2 hours. 1.2 hours! I almost laughed out loud. I can do a standard belt swap in my garage in about 20 minutes now, maybe 30 if the drum rollers are shot. It really shows how much the trade has changed. Back then, with less common tools and maybe fewer guides, everything took longer. Now, with YouTube and better access to parts, we can work so much faster. It makes me wonder what other jobs had crazy high book times back in the day. Has anyone else come across an old manual with times that seem totally wild now?

A customer told me my $45 service call fee was why they learned to fix their own dryer, and it got me thinking.

I was replacing the same dryer belt every six months until I started checking the idler pulley arm

For a long time, I'd just swap the belt when it snapped and call it done. Last fall, a customer in the Southside area kept having the same issue, so I looked closer. The metal arm for the idler pulley had worn a slight groove, creating extra drag. I filed it smooth and replaced the pulley at the same time. That dryer hasn't needed a belt since. Has anyone else found a worn arm causing repeat belt failures?

A customer in Phoenix told me to always check the door switch first on a no-start dryer, even if the light is on.

I was sure the thermal fuse was blown on a Whirlpool model, but they mentioned their last tech found a bent actuator arm that passed the continuity test but still failed under load. I spent an extra 20 minutes checking and sure enough, that was it. How many other 'obvious' fixes do we sometimes skip past?

Got into it with a buddy over whether to replace or rebuild a 15-year-old Maytag washer motor last Tuesday

He says always swap the whole unit for speed, but I rebuilt the motor in my garage in about two hours for under $40, so what's your go-to call on old but fixable parts?

Shoutout to the guy at the parts counter who changed my mind about thermal fuses

I was picking up a new thermal fuse for a dryer at the local supply house in Springfield. The older guy behind the counter, Mike, asked which one I needed. I said the usual, the one that always blows when the vent is clogged. He just shook his head and said, 'You know, that part isn't a failure, it's a report. It's telling you the story of what went wrong upstream.' That hit me different. I'd been treating it like a bad light bulb for years, just a thing to swap. He made me see it as the last piece of a chain. Now I spend the extra five minutes checking the whole airflow path, not just the fuse. It's made callbacks way less common. How do you guys approach a blown thermal fuse, do you just replace it or do a full check every time?

After ignoring the hiss from a customer's Bosch dishwasher for a month, I finally traced it to a 25-cent O-ring on the diverter motor shaft.

I spent three hours pulling the whole unit apart thinking it was the pump, only to find the tiny seal had hardened and was letting a whisper of air past every cycle, which makes me wonder what other 'big' noises you all have fixed with a cheap part?

TIL a trick for those old Frigidaire ice makers that just hum

Had a rough Tuesday with three of those calls in a row, all the same issue. I finally remembered my old boss in Dayton saying to check the little plastic gear on the motor shaft for stripped teeth, and sure enough, that was it on all three. Anyone got a good source for those gears besides the whole motor assembly?

A customer in my area told me my diagnostic fee was 'highway robbery' and it made me think.

Spent a whole afternoon on a 1990s dryer that just needed a new belt

Got a call for a Maytag dryer from 1995 that wouldn't tumble. Figured it was the motor or idler pulley, easy. Pulled it apart, checked the usual suspects, everything seemed fine. After about 3 hours of head scratching, I finally saw the drive belt had just stretched enough to slip off the motor pulley, but it was still sitting in the drum groove so it looked installed. Popped a new belt on in 5 minutes. Anyone else get fooled by a simple part hiding in plain sight on an older unit?

A customer told me 'it's cheaper to buy new' and I've been chewing on that all month

I was finishing a dryer repair, a basic belt and roller job, and the guy paying the bill said the line I hear a lot: 'At this price, I might as well have bought a new one.' But this time he added, 'You folks are a dying trade.' It got under my skin. On one hand, I see his point. A basic new dryer is maybe $500. My labor and parts hit $300. But on the other hand, his old unit is a solid Whirlpool from 2010, all metal parts. The new one he'd get is full of plastic and boards that could fail in a year. I told him that, and he just shrugged. It made me wonder if we're losing the fight on value perception, even when the repair is the smarter long-term play. How do you guys handle that 'buy new' comment when you know the fix is the right call?

My uncle told me to always check the capacitor first on a fridge that hums but won't start, and it saved me from a wild goose chase last Friday.

Appreciation post: I just finished my 100th dryer vent cleaning job

I always thought those were just a quick add-on service, not a real milestone. But after I cleared out a vent in a house in Springfield that was packed solid with lint, the homeowner showed me her old energy bill. Her dryer had been running for 90 minutes per load! Now I explain the fire risk and energy waste to every single customer. Has anyone else started tracking a specific service like this?

A guy in a Denver apartment told me his fridge was 'haunted' because it kept turning off.

I went out on a call to a high rise near Coors Field. The guy was dead serious, saying it would just die for an hour every night. I found a loose wire on the defrost timer behind the back panel. When I told him, he looked at me and said, 'So it's not a ghost, it's just old and tired like me?' It was a simple fix, but his take on it stuck with me. Do you ever get customers who blame appliance problems on the weirdest things?

Why does nobody talk about the voltage drop on long fridge water lines?

I was reading a service bulletin from a manufacturer and it said a 25 foot line can drop enough pressure to trick the ice maker into thinking it's full. Found that out after a call where the homeowner kept getting half cubes. Anyone else run into this with those fancy built-in fridges?

Pro tip: I saw a hotel laundry room in Phoenix with all the machines open for service

I was staying at a hotel in Phoenix last week for a job, and I walked past their big laundry room. The door was open, and every single washer and dryer had its front panel off. They were all the same model, a big commercial brand, and they were lined up like that for a full day. It got me thinking. On one hand, it's smart. One tech can move down the line, doing the same fix on each machine without opening and closing them over and over. It saves a ton of time. But on the other hand, it looked like a mess, and I'd worry about guests seeing it or parts getting mixed up. It's a real efficiency versus professionalism debate. Have any of you ever set up a repair line like that for a big job, or do you think it's better to do one at a time?

Went to the appliance graveyard at the old Johnson Salvage yard and saw something wild

They had a whole row of 15 year old front load washers, and every single one had a cracked spider arm. I always thought those failures were more random, but seeing a dozen identical busted parts changed my mind. Makes me wonder if there's a specific batch or model year that's just a ticking time bomb. Has anyone else seen a pattern like that in a scrap pile?

A customer in Bellingham told me I was 'part of the problem' for fixing his 12-year-old washer instead of telling him to buy new. Where do you stand on repairing old units?

Showerthought: I was replacing dryer thermistors for months before a tech showed me the real test.

For a solid six months, any time a dryer came in with a no heat complaint, I'd just swap the thermistor. It was my go to fix. Then this older guy, Mike, who works out of a van in Mesa, watched me do it. He said 'You ever actually check the continuity change with a heat gun?' I hadn't. He pulled out his meter, showed me how a good one should drop resistance smoothly as it warmed up. The next three 'bad' thermistors I pulled? Two of them tested fine. I was just throwing parts at the problem because that's how I was shown. Now I always do the heat test first. How many of you actually test every single thermistor before you replace it, or do you just swap it on sight?

The amount of times I see people skip the thermal fuse check on a dryer is wild

Just had a call for a dryer that wouldn't heat, the guy before me told the customer they needed a whole new heating element assembly for $300. Popped the back panel, checked the thermal fuse with my meter, and it was open. A $15 part and 20 minutes later, it was running. That's a basic, five-minute diagnostic step. How many folks are out there paying for parts they don't need because someone didn't do the simple stuff first? What's the most obvious step you see get missed all the time?

I thought those cheap thermal cameras from the hardware store were a joke until I found a tiny leak in a sealed system that was invisible to my gauges.

A lady in a St. Louis basement showed me why I was wrong about dryer vents

I was on a call for a noisy dryer and found her vent line was a 30-foot corrugated mess, completely blocked with lint after 8 years. She told me 'the last guy said it was fine' and I realized I'd been skipping the full vent check on quick service calls too. How many of you actually pull the whole vent line on every dryer job, or just check the basics?

Just realized I was wrong about those cheap universal washer hoses

I had a job last month where the old supply lines on a washing machine were shot. The homeowner had already bought these no-name universal hoses from a big box store, the kind that come with a bag of plastic adapters. My other choice was to run to my supplier and get the proper, brand-specific OEM hoses, which would have cost about $35 more for the pair and added an hour to the job. I went with the cheap ones to save the client time and money. Big mistake. Two weeks later, I got a callback. One of those plastic adapters had cracked at the valve, causing a slow leak that ruined the laminate floor in the laundry closet. The repair bill for the floor was over $800. I ate the cost because it was my call. Now I will never, ever install a universal hose kit again. Has anyone else been burned by trying to save a few bucks on the small parts?