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Jan

2013

Five Most Common Problems With Refrigerators ~ Blog

Ok, today I am going to be discussing with you the five most common problems with refrigerators.

0:18 Number one is a stuck fridge fan. When you open your fridge and it is in it’s run cycle you should hear the sound like you are hearing now, the fan motor spinning. Sometimes what happens is the fan blades get stuck against the side or the fan blade itself goes so far back that it seats against the motor and than the blades get stuck and don’t turn.

0:42 Second most common problems with refrigerators is drips from the ceiling. Now if it’s just small drips it can be caused by food put in that’s hot like boiling or something that had boiled and than set in the fridge without a cover on it. The way to eliminate that is to keep a cover on your food.

But if your seeing excessive drips from the inside center here then it may indicate that you have a clogged condensate drain which is a very common problem with refrigerators.

01:11 The third most common problem with refrigerators is the compressor not running. If you listen back here you can kind of hear the hum of the compressor. So if you don’t hear that sound that low humming sound that’s different from the fan going than your starter may need to be replaced on the compressor.

01:31 The fourth most common problem with refrigerators is torn gaskets. The way that you prevent that from happening is to clean the gaskets here often, and to clean the fridge surface here often, where it mates. What happens is sticky foods stick in there and than pulling apart from the gasket
eventually can tear the gasket wear out the gasket so that’s the way to
kind of prevent it.

Each door manufacturer is different so you might have to consult your directions on how to replace your gasket. Some of them will have screws along the inside portion here of the gasket in order to change it.
Others will have a press in place groove that the gasket gets pressed into.
Others the entire door portion will pull apart so that you can replace the gasket. So each kind is just slightly different.

02:20 And the fifth most common problem with refrigerators is being off balance. What you want is for when you let your fridge door go you want it to just close nice and gently and close all the way.

You want the fridge to aim towards the back just a tiny bit so that condensate goes down and stays along the back of the fridge and settles into the pan that’s on the back on the top of the compressor usually. But anyway, you want your fridge to angle towards the back just a tiny bit.

If your fridge is off balance there is usually an adjustment screw here.
Or some fridges have a wheel that is turned here. This ones got a wheel that’s turned, as you can see, one on each side. And these can be adjusted
just by lifting up a little bit on the fridge and than turning this either by hand or with channel locks.

So that’s the five most common problems with refrigerators.

Jan

2013

Washing Machine: Five Most Common Problems Blog

OK, today I wanted to go over the five most common problems with washing machines with you.

00:19 The number one most often problem with washing machines is a washing machine that doesn’t drain or spin, most often caused by a broken lid switch.

You should hear a click as this goes into place. If you don’t hear that click then your, or if your washing machine is not going into its final cycles
it’s most often this lid switch here.

Sometimes you can just press on this right side and get it to engage the switch. Also occasionally you can just adjust the post a little bit
so that the post will stick further into the switch which will engage the switch. Also sometimes you can just adjust the switch or tighten it up.
Often it needs to be replaced I have a video on that.

01:05 Second most often problem with washing machines often goes undetected something you’d probably want to check regularly is that your agitator dogs are working properly. What it should do is turn the bottom one-way or the other. So this one is turning it like it should and the agitator dogs are functioning. Now if it’s not doing that than your clothes are just getting rinsed. They are not really getting washed. It is an often missed
problem with washing machines. And it is probably very common because the agitator dogs inside here are designed to break if someone’s arm was to get stuck in here or if something was to bind up too much the agitator dogs will actually strip on purpose as a safety mechanism.

01:50 Third most common problem with washing machines is a clogged pump at the impeller. Sometimes a penny or a button, or something else, a bobby pin, whatever goes down the drain line and gets stuck at the pump.

02:05 Fourth most common problem is a leak. Most often leaks occur up on the left side.

Fifth most common problem is a washing machine out of balance. Now the most often cause of the machine being out of balance is just a matter of redistributing the clothes. Usually a towel or something gets on one side and you hear the whump whump whump whump of the machine.

What you need to do is open the lid and than go ahead and readjust the clothing or go ahead and readjust the towel. Readjust the items in the bin to get it more balanced. Then go ahead and run it again see if it works out and you have no more out of balance deal.

Sometimes you could lose a spring. Most often times it’s just that the
machine is out of balance. Eventually I’ll have to make you a video showing you how to reset the spring if it did come off.

There are three different shocks and then there is a spring that holds the machine basin in place.

Now the way to check if your machine is still in balance is just ahead and run it empty with water. Let the water fill up. If the machine finds its balance than you know it was just a matter of the clothes or the laundry items being out of balance

Anyway that is the five most common problems with washing machines!

~ TFW ~..~ KFM ~

Jan

2013

Dishwashers: Five Most Common Problems Blog

Just wanted to through a bunch of things today on dishwashers.

1) Clogged Float Cup Switch 0:22
2) Water Shooting from Air Gap. 1:42
3) Dishwasher not Draining 2:31
4) Soap Dispenser Door Not Latching Properly 4:00
5) Stuck Impeller 4:47

00:22 If you ever see water coming from right here running down. You can see like a calcium deposit or you see water dripping from that side. Usually what it is is a stuck float switch.

Now these float switches on this particular model have a little phillips screw back here that comes off. It is usually just soap scum. Soap scum just builds up inside there and it will look a lot worse than it actually is but it is actually just soap residue left behind.

So let me show you here. I’m not sure. This one is not leaking like I was saying but oh yeah! You can see all the soap residue inside there.

Well this little cup floats up as the water fills and engages this little switch here. Releases that little switch and that’s how the water knows. Well that’s how the dishwasher is told to shut the water off. So anyway we gotta clean all this stuff out here and that is how you fix that problem.

So I’m gonna clean this one all out since I am turning the unit. That way when someone moves in they don’t have a surprise the first time they use the dishwasher.

01:42 Up here on the dishwasher this is your air gap. Now if you ever see water spit out of this air gap it’s an indication of the garbage disposal drain line being clogged.

From the dishwasher air gap under here you can see this line going into the garbage disposal. This is our disposal to drain line and this gets built up with gunk and food so you got to undo the clamp here and clear this line out or replace the line. One of the two of and for stubborn ones you can hook it up to a hose bibb and just flush it out, clean it out. There’s another way to do it also where you can take a brush and run it down inside here
remove this cap here.

Now if your dishwasher wasn’t draining that would be a good time to check inside this cap. Also often there is a, set this down so I can get my other hand on it. Anyways you just squeeze these two clips in and than just pull the cap right out.

Whoa!

02:47 I don’t know if you saw that but there is like a chicken bone down there. Sometimes if you’re disposal drain is not draining it’s time to check this here. In order to get that chicken bone to float back up what I’m gonna try and do is dump some water down inside there and see if it will float up to the top for me. Sometimes it will float right up when the line is filled.
If it’s light enough. I’ve seen it with pieces of plastic and such. It’s full now
but nope it’s not going to float up there for me but if it was like a plastic toothpick or something like that sometimes you can get it to float up.

So what I will have to do is just run this through the drain cycle for just a second and its gonna shoot water up and all but I’ve got to shoot that out of there.

Anyway I will come back to that later I just wanted to show you guys a bunch of stuff with dishwashers. Sometimes these 04:02 the spring for this gets broken off, often they come off and you can separate the two halves of the door and than reset the spring, it’s a little tricky but you just gotta get a place, to find, to reset that spring latch to. Sometimes it takes a little bit of an adjustment to get it.

Let’s see. This one’s working ok. Well it is not very strong so this one looks like possibly the spring has come off because it should only open automatically when it gets to the right point. Yeah this one is definitely broken. So that needs to be reworked to reset the spring.

What else can I show you?

04:47 Sometimes the impeller will get stuck. Dishwashers, there is four screws that hold the bottom trim plate on and each type of impeller is a little bit different. This particular model has like a fan connected to it and you can just turn the fan blades to unstick the impeller.

Let me remove these four screws. Other kinds you will have to use like a screwdriver,like two screwdrivers, and kind of wedge it against the
motor impeller in order to free up the impeller. You just kind of keep turning it until it gives. You’ll feel it be like really tough for a bit
and than all of a sudden it will move really easy.

This is probably going to be a little nasty in here. Got our sound insulation here keeping the noise out or in.

The impeller, if you had turned the dishwasher on and you hear like a humming but it’s not kicking on, that’s usually your impeller stuck.

Make sure you turn the power off and than reach right back here. And I don’t know if you can really see it that well but let me see if I can get my
flashlight going here to give you guys a lookie loo.

Put you inside there a little bit and I don’t know if you can see the fan blades there but I’m going to turn them with my other hand. Anyway sometimes if they were like really hard to turn at first and than it will just give and it will spin freely. It should spin nice and freely and that is how you can unstick those if it was stuck.

Other kinds you’ll see the impeller shaft right here and you’ll be able to turn it.

Anyway that is a little bit about dishwashers there. Some of the most common things you will come across maintenance wise!