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Last week we had several dryer repairs that had extreme lint buildup. One had caught on fire. One customer actually kept her vent pristine but had never cleaned the inside of the dryer. Anyhow, this morning I decided what better way to get the message across then to write a song (big surprise). But this time I also made a slide presentation.


How Deep is Your Lint? or Dyer Fire ie Bee Gees as Appliantologists

I believe that you
Don't want your doors to be charcoal
Or see the light from a fire in the darkest hour
Nor want your house to fall
And you may not think we care for you
When you know down inside
That we really do

Then it's time for you to show
How deep is your lint
How deep is your lint
You really need to know
Because your dryer is a major tool
That'll burn your house down
When it should always be lint free
If you love your family.

How deep is your lint?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R9YmRWaLIQ

In my best Lawerence Welk voice (young uns, look him up on youtube)...., "This time, a short Thanksgiving tribute to those of us who sacrifice family holiday time to help beleaguered customers "

There and Back Again,
The Travels Triumphs and Tributes of an Appliance Repairman

(travel)
Over the river and through the woods
To customer's house you go
You know the way
'Cause GPS say
"Turn right, keep straight, go slow...ohhh! (everybody join in and hold the note to signify passage of time and for dramatic effect).....ooohhhh!"

(triumph)
Over more rivers and through more woods
Then rightly herald as "king!"
As customer bakes
A turkey, a cake
In an oven once stuck in Self-Clean.

(tribute)
Over the rivers and through the woods
Back to your house you go
To give thanks and pray
This Thanksgiving day,
For being blessed with a job you love so.

I just want to take a few minutes to thank you for all of the help you have given me over the years. I just sent you another beer donation. I figure you have saved me at LEAST $1,000.00 in service calls by instructing me in how to fix my washer myself. So this is the least I can do.

This is a shout out to all of the people requesting help. Please send Almighty Master a donation. He really knows his stuff and really helps you save money!

Konnichiwa,

As you probably inferred from its name, this forum is for service manual requests only. Please do not post problem descriptions or requests for service help here-- post those in the appropriate forum (Kitchen, Laundry, etc.).

Domo!

I replaced a basket drive and drive block on a 3 year old Whirlpool direct drive top load washer today.  Customer originally wanted to get rid of it and buy a new washer due to the $372.00 repair quote I gave them. I convinced them it was worth the money to get it fixed because they no longer make these washers and that they won't find another top load washer as durable and dependable as this washer.  I also told them it is rare on these for the drive block to get stripped enough to ruin the basket drive.   To me it is worth saving these washers from the junkyards no matter how much money is spent repairing them.

If you're going to use a brass nut and feral on a plastic water line you need the metal inserts that correspond to the size of the water line to keep the compression feral from crushing the plastic line.

Looking for owners manual for Coleman 2910 mosquito deleto.

We practice basic safe food handling in our daily lives, but obtaining and storing food safely becomes more challenging during a power outage or natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

Steps to Follow to Prepare for a Possible Weather Emergency:

Keep an appliance thermometer in the refrigerator and freezer. An appliance thermometer will indicate the temperature in the refrigerator and freezer in case of a power outage and help determine the safety of the food.

Make sure the freezer is at 0 °F (Fahrenheit) or below and the refrigerator is at 40 °F or below.

Freeze containers of water for ice to help keep food cold in the freezer, refrigerator, or coolers after the power is out.

Freeze refrigerated items such as leftovers, milk, and fresh meat and poultry that you may not need immediately-this helps keep them at a safe temperature longer.

Plan ahead and know where dry ice and block ice can be purchased.
Store food on shelves that will be safely out of the way of contaminated water in case of flooding.

Have coolers on hand to keep refrigerator food cold if the power will be out for more than 4 hours. Purchase or make ice cubes and store in the freezer for use in the refrigerator or in a cooler. Freeze gel packs ahead of time for use in coolers.
Group food together in the freezer—this helps the food stay cold longer.

Steps to Follow During and After the Weather Emergency:

Never taste a food to determine its safety!

Keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature.

The refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about 4 hours if it is unopened. A full freezer will hold the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full and the door remains closed).

Food may be safely refrozen if it still contains ice crystals or is at 40 °F or below.
Obtain block ice or dry ice to keep your refrigerator and freezer as cold as possible if the power is going to be out for a prolonged period of time. Fifty pounds of dry ice should hold an 18-cubic-foot full freezer for 2 days.

If the power has been out for several days, then check the temperature of the freezer with an appliance thermometer or food thermometer. If the food still contains ice crystals or is at 40 °F or below, the food is safe.
If a thermometer has not been kept in the freezer, then check each package of food to determine its safety. If the food still contains ice crystals, the food is safe.
Discard refrigerated perishable food such as meat, poultry, fish, soft cheeses, milk, eggs, leftovers, and deli items after 4 hours without power.

When in Doubt, Throw it Out!

from http://www.fsis.usda...Guide/index.asp

Looks like on this one you have to remove the entire ff roof (facade) first.  What a joy. See what you find in diagnostic mode first. Why can't everyone be happy with a simple side by side with the icemaker in the damn freezer where it belongs? But noooo we gotta have a bottom freezer 'cause it's cool or maybe we need more room to store tons of food to feed our already fat faces and then we got to build a little freezer in the fridge to put the icemaker cause we are too lazy or too fat to stoop down and scoop some ice to put in our diet coke.  sorry....it just comes out every once in a while.

OK, in a nutshell, these new grandiose designs that today's appliance engineers dream is starting to suck.

 

Today I had to take an entire stainless steel outer door panel off a KitchenAid built in side by side refrigerator just to replace an ice dispenser door.  How nice of the engineers to hide all the dispenser screws under the door panel.

 

And what the hell is with all these freakin icemakers stuffed in the freezer doors? Does that really give the customer that much freakin room  by stuffing the icemaker and the bin in the door?

 

GE now has a one piece door on a dishwasher, if there is a problem with the dispenser or the touchpad, tough luck, you have to replace the entire door. The electronic control on this lovely GE dishwasher is now stuffed underneath the dishwasher hidden under the frame of the unit.you have to pull the door off it's hinges to make enough room to take the electronic control out or pull the whole dishwasher out.

 

Also gotta love every top load washing machine is now front serviceable BUT the Whirlpool brands, tough luck, you gotta crawl underneath the machine  and on the Cabrio's get behind them to change the drain pump.

 

Also gotta love Whirlpool using the one time use hose clamps on the new dishwashers, the hose clamps are so bad, they let go on their own, now Whirlpool has a rework, funny how they save 5 cents per dishwasher on the one time use hose clamp now costs them a $70 rework. They are also using that one time use hose clamp on the new front load washers, so now everytime you replace a drain pump on those washers you have to change the hose clamp. That's thinking Whirlpool.

 

Also, I would like to know why Whirlpool is making a ton of electronic controls NLA after only 5 to 10 years.  Like everybody will just go buy a new appliance.

 

OK, end of rant for now.

Just want to share a little tip on the GE 2001 and newer SXS refrigerators. Some of you I'm sure have seen this, but if you haven't, when you see this problem you will remember this post and it can turn a frustrating, time consuming and expensive call into a 5 min call that will make you look pretty smart. I had a callback today for a sxs that another one of our techs was out on yesterday. The complaint was warm fridge and freezer was ok.  The other tech had written down that the damper was stuck and he manually freed it up. I called bs when I saw that diagnosis and planned on treating it like I was 1st on the call. When I get there and walk towards the fridge I notice the fridge door is uneven with the freezer, which always bothers me and I usually adjust them for the customer on GE's without bringing it up to them because it is so easy to do. That is all the other tech would have had to do.  The refrigerator light wasn't shutting off because the door was dropped down too far to hit and close the switch.  When this happens the motherboard recognizes this and shuts the damper down, I assume it thinks the door is open and wants to keep the warm air out of the freezer so the evaporator doesn't frost up. This time the plastic cam broke, the door dropped just enough to keep the switch from being acuated and the damper shut down. I had a good idea what was up when I saw the uneven doors. I opened the fridge door, pushed in the switch and heard the damper start to open. That was the problem. I gave the hinge a few turns and I looked pretty smart to the customer this time, but only because the 1st time I ran into this I spent about 45 min trying to figure out what was going on, including changing out the motherboard in the process, and all it needed was 5 min and a hinge adjustment. I hope this helps someone down the road.

I had the air ducts in the house cleaned (bad allergies) and part of the service was to clean the dryer vent out.  I'm thinking:  "bah, I clean that out once a year and make sure there is no build up..."

 

My dryer vents straight up through the roof of my single story house.  It's a 14' run straight up.  Odd configuration and one I now strongly don't recommend.

 

Anyway, the guy gets up on the roof with his long brush and starts going to work running it up and down.  I live in Vegas and yet it looked like a Minnesota blizzard around my house.  Big chunks of lint and lots of lint dust flying all over the place as the technician did his thing.  I'd estimate a half-pound of lint total (that's a lot!).

 

So I dodged a bullet there with that amount of build up.  I have added regular dryer vent cleaning by a professional to my house maintenance list.

 

Hopefully, this will help others avoid a big problem.  Get your dryer vents cleaned please!

... On a level playing field, we are confident that Whirlpool will continue to produce leading innovative products

... then design and build an innovative product ...

OR re-allow the build of the classic Direct Drive Whirlpool top-loaders

A well trained ear can often hear the sound of the cetrifugal switch snapping on startup. Listen for the crispness of the switch and the amount of time it takes to drop out the start windings. Cycle the motor on and off a few times in rapid succession. Usually if the centrifugal switch iis hanging up, you can hear it. Does it growl as the motor is coming up to speed?

...  remember give a man a fish etc....

.. "Give a man fire, he'll be warm for a day...

"Set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life ..."

From the old days , when you had a few to test with out fumbling.....Made with left over meter leads............

......and some Radio Shack stuff...

Brethren, let us open our Appliantology Hymnals to the page 101, The Prophecy, wherein it is written, "Never, ever trust customer diagnostics." You have to start troubleshooting from square one and it begins with verifying a valid power supply before going inside the box, as Brother jumptrout mentioned.

Can I hear an, "Amen?"

R134a now available to the public in Wisconsin

http://datcp.wi.gov/...awChangeFAQ.pdf

I've seen it at Big Lots in Milwaukee
(locked-up in glass display)
(I'm not sure of the can sizes.. some with leak detection)
12 oz can $ 8
10 oz can w/stop leak / with hose $ 12
20 oz can w/ hose & small gauge $ 20

How are these stores and manufacturers getting away with charging the same price for a dryer as the washer? There may be some justification on the low price entry level machines, but not on the newer design high efficiency machines most people purchace.The washer is far more complex, has many more parts, it weighs much more, the chassis has to be much stronger, and you know the cost to design and produce the washer far exceed those of a dryer. I see ads for front load sets that want $1200 each for the washer and dryer.

Lets face it, you are being robbed on the dryer. That $1200 dryer probably cost less that half as much as the washer to manufacture, I bet they built it for less than $400.

And $250 or more for the stands....

I've been reading the previous 50 or so posts tonight---and noticed several visitors to the forum had a common "problem" with their dryer---which uses a MOISTURE SENSOR.

The complaint was identical:

"Laundry doesn't always dry" (and the vent system was ruled-out)

The responses were similar:

"Avoid small loads in dryers that have/use MOISTURE SENSORS"

or...

"For small loads---use the TIME DRY cycle"




There is a solution---and it's a very simple one.

Some years back---I had an older lady (widow)---that contacted us regarding her LG dryer.
Her complaint was that the laundry was not dry at the end of the cycle.
Also---the cycle run time/duration was rather short (cycle ended far earlier than initial time displayed).

In her case---she does not wash/dry large loads at all---and rarely does she even have medium sized loads to wash.

On LG dryers---the MOISTURE SENSOR ("bars") are located at the front of the dryer---on the LINT FILTER HOUSING.

If the dryer is dead-level---which hers was---a small load of laundry will tumble in the GIANT DRUM and very erratically come into contact with the MOISTURE SENSOR.

By raising the REAR LEVELING LEGS about an inch---this forced the tumbling small load of laundry to remain at the *front* of the dryer---continually falling/contacting the MOISTURE SENSOR.

On dryers (other brands) in which the sensors are positioned at the rear/back of the drum---simply raise the *front* leveling legs to get the same result.

Technicians can demonstrate to the customer by running the dryer with 2 or 3 small pieces of clothing---laundry will either tumble at the rear of the drum or near the center (in an LG dryer--for example).

Explain to the customer---the MOISTURE SENSORs function and that wet/damp laundry *must* continually come into contact with the sensor (show the customer the location of the sensor).

After adjusting the legs---the customer/owner will notice the laundry moving toward the SENSOR location within 30 seconds of starting the cycle---and remain at that location in the drum for the duration of the cycle.

Dry laundry.

Problem solved