Appliance Repair and Troubleshooting tips

[Secret Stache]

I had a refridgerator and washing machine short out after a lightning strike so I went to the internet to find a solution.  Based on the symptoms of the fridge I determined I needed a new fan motor and purchased it online for $80.  In the meantime my home owners insurance said they would cover all of the repairs (discussed further herehttps://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/maintenance-repairs-and-home-ownership/ so I called a repair man to look at the washer.

He informed me that I correctly diagnosed the fan motor on the fridge and he would have charged me $313 for the part and $65 for the service call had I gone through him.  What a mark up!  He then was able to change a fuse out on the washer and I got out of the whole deal for $65.

One thing of note that I thought was worth sharing was he first opened and closed the lid to the washer 6 times in 10 seconds.  I asked about this and he said that is the "code" to reset the board attached to the motor and it often fixes issues, interesting.  Additionally he said if you take the panel off of the washer and the motor has power there is a green blinking light that blinks in different cadences.  If you right down the blinks (similar to morse code) you can then trouble shoot the fault online to see if you can fix it your self.  I thought these were pretty great tips.

[plantingourpennies]

Warning to all the first timer's here-unplug that cord before you start poking around in appliances. Stoves and driers use 220V, which isn't nearly as forgiving as the 110V that you might be used to.

About two years ago I got a nasty shock while repairing a used drier at one of my rental properties. It was late at night, I was all alone and in a hurry; forgot to unplug the circuit and shorted myself against the metal frame. I was briefly "locked in" and couldn't move-very scary.

All that said-Matt, way to save some dough! I found that appliance repair was difficult, but possible if you use the info on the net.

[jdoolin]

Yeah, I've done some appliance repair too.

Our dryer was squealing like crazy, and found that it was just a bearing that I was able to replace for about $20.

Our big electric range burner kept turning off and turned out to be a bad receptacle that cost $6 to replace.  Very easy to do as well.  There's also a bad variable resistor on one of the burner knobs, so I'm going to switch it out with one from a burner we don't use, and that one will just be dead.

The popcorn popper I used for roasting coffee had a bad switch, so I removed the one from an old grinder that we were tossing and replaced the one in the popper.  In fact, in all appliances I find, I now remove any useable parts, like motors and switches.