Appliance Repair Wisdom for the Ages

Sunday, January 25, 2004

A website that picks up where Appliantology ends (so to speak): Toiletology 101. "Let's plunge in; flush out the facts and plumb the depths of toilet repairs. Almost everything you ever wanted to know about your toilets! And some things you probably never knew you needed to know."

Friday, January 23, 2004

Your appliance is broken and your repair quest has brought you to Fixitnow.com. Your knees wobble and your bowels rumble as you contemplate doing the repair yourself. Since he is omniscient (and he knows it), the Samurai hears your question before you even ask it: "What am I in for if I decide to do this repair myself?"

Introducing Samurai's User-friendly Difficulty Scale (SUDS). Created just for Fixitnow.com Grasshoppers, the Samurai has developed a proprietary scale for rating the difficulty of appliance repairs. SUDS is based on the universally-understood six-pack: the more difficult a repair task is, the more suds it takes to get through it. So now, when I'm helping you do a repair, either in the Appliantology Group or in Live Help, I can quantify the difficulty of the repair task that lies before you using a scale we can all understand: SUDS. Simple. Intuitive. Fermented. That's the Samurai Way.

After you complete your repair using the myriad resources at Fixitnow.com or the Appliantology Group, you can return the favor and help the Samurai maintain his own supply of suds by giving to the United Samurai Beer Fund. Cheers!

SAMURAI'S USER-FRIENDLY DIFFICULTY SCALE (SUDS) for assessing appliance repair task difficulty
	Cake walk. You'll be done before your beer gets warm. This is simple stuff that requires few, if any, tools and almost no electrical skills.
	Not too bad, but you'll need a refill on your beer. You'll only need ordinary tools, nothing specialized. You may need a multimeter to make a simple continuity check.
	You'll need a little buzz to get through this one. Basic set of common tools and some specialty tools required. If it's an electrical problem, you'll need your multimeter and the wiring diagram.
	Get the kids out of earshot, adult language forthcoming. Settle in and get ready to spend some time on this one. No quick fix here, Hoss.
	A third arm growing out of the middle of your chest would be helpful. Time and pain, that's what you're in for here. If it's an electrical problem, get ready for a brain teaser. If mechanical, you'll be giving libations of your own blood from the skin scraped off your knuckles.
	What were the engineers smoking when they designed this damn thing? When you're done with this one, you'll probably want to hunt down the sadists who designed your appliance so you can give them a taste of the living hell they put you through.

Friday, January 16, 2004

I subscribe to Maytag's technical bulletin service that gives monthly tech updates on all Maytag appliances. Many times, the bulletin package is almost entirely devoted to bandaiding the Maytag Neptune's myriad design blunders. Judging from that, and the Neptune service calls I've done, I always figured that the Neptune's engineering team musta been smokin' crack when they hit the drawing board. Lots of pissed-off Neptune owners out there, Maytag's Priority One warranty service notwithstanding. The sell-job to buy a Maytag is that you won't need warranty service because they're so reliable. Not this bad boy. Well, this class action lawsuit awwta be a wakeup call for Ol' Lonely.

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

After hearing millions of grasshoppers chirping the praises of Fixitnow.com, the Supreme Samurai Council decided to send their top Field Compliance Officer, Kudzuki, to investigate. Kudzuki-san witnessed Samurai Appliance Repair Man in action, battling an appliance, and filed this report with the Supreme Samurai Council.

Ahh, Grasshopper, your haiku has earned you special attention.

First, since you described testing the switches, I cleverly deduce that yours is a Whirlpool old-style icemaker. Several suspects to check here. The water valve ain't one of 'em because if it was bad, you wouldn't even have gotten your eight measly cubes. But, it's not a bad idea to test the water valve coil just to cover all the bases.

Make sure the white, plastic timing gear in the front of the control head isn't missing any teeth and that it's making full contact with the driver pinion throughout the full rotation.

Next, the water valve switch inside the icemaker control head can be a squirrelly bugger and is famous for deceiving even seasoned technicians. It can test good when it's near room temperature but then go flakey as it starts to chill down to freezer temps. The other common troublemaker is the thermostat. It, too, can behave in a flakey manner similar to the water valve switch. Determining with certainty that one of these components is bad can be tricky. Fortunately, they're both very inexpensive so you won't be out a lot of shekels if you replace both of 'em.

Even new, replacement icemaker kits aren't terribly expensive. If you don't feel like tinkering with an old icemaker, you can buy a new icemaker kit here.

Awwite, let's go make some chill pills!

Monday, January 12, 2004

Sunday, January 11, 2004

I'm trying to figure out how people are finding this website. I'd appreciate your help if you'd take just a second to answer the poll below. Domo!

Friday, January 09, 2004

You're surfing the Web looking for do-it-yourself appliance repair help and you come across Fixitnow.com. After the initial shock and awe, you ask yourself, "Is this site for real or is it just a sad and twisted showcase for a delusional personality disorder?"

That's a good question, thanks for not asking. The answer is a shameless, "YES!" Although Samurai Appliance Repair Man does suffer from delusions that your broken appliances mock and dishonor him, Fixitnow.com is an authentic and reliable source of appliance repair help. But you don't have to take my word for it. See this BBBOnLine emblem? Yeah, that one. Go ahead and click it and you can get background information on Fixitnow.com.

So what does this mean for you? Well, for starters, it means Fixitnow.com has been checked out by an independent group and they verified that it ain't one o' them flimflam websites like you find on the seedy underbelly of the Web. Yessir, you got the real deal ratcheer, Hoss. It also means that when you purchase Live Repair Help, I'm not out to scam your money. Fixitnow.com is all about helping you fix your appliances...and maybe with a giggle or two along the way.

Ok, let's kick some appliance butt!

Thursday, January 08, 2004

Dryer squeals at start.
Run a little: that's ok.
Buy repair kit now!

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Footnote: if your dryer is really less than one year old then fuggetaboutit--you should call for authorized warranty service so you don't void the warranty.

I think you need a vocabulary course so you can expand your runtish repertoire of nicknames. For example, instead of your sophomoric and nebulous "F*CKED CUSTOMER," you could use any one of the following appellations to more accurately describe yourself:

• HORNSWAGGLED MUTTONHEAD
• SWINDLED SUCKER
• BAMBOOZLED BONEHEAD
• CHEATED CHUMP
• DEFRAUDED DUNDERHEAD

You get the idea. I also think all the above monikers apply if you let your non-Samurai repair man get away with cheating you like that. Have you called him back out to finish what you hired him to do? If he had to guess about whether or not the sensor was bad, then he really is a bozo who lacks fundamental appliance knowledge that any competent technician should know. And he should eat the fee he already charged you for the sensor replacement.

Oven temperature sensors can be tested with your ohm meter to determine whether or not they're bad. This is basic stuff--no guess work involved here.

If the sensor tests ok, then turn your attention to the ERC. On most ERC's, you can calibrate the cooking temp--your user's manual will have the specific procedure for your range. For example, one common procedure used by the manufacturers is to punch in a temp of 350ºF and then press and hold the Bake key for 5 seconds, after which you can use the up and down arrow keys to adjust the bake temp up or down. Your range may be different but the calibration procedure will be in your user's manual. If the ERC won't calibrate satisfactorily, then replace the ERC.

Go git 'em!

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

Snowy mountain trek,
peaks emerge from misty skies.
Candy for your eyes..

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Monday, January 05, 2004

Range display is dim.
Need help, not a service call.
Replace ERC.

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Sunday, January 04, 2004

Here's a warning to anyone considering installing the Net2phone internet telephone software on your computer. If you really want to jump into the internet telephone craze, the so-called VoIP method of making phone calls from your computer, heed this warning well. If you feel compelled to see what all the hoopla is about, use Skype.com. It's a well-behaved program, phone calls to other Skype users are free, and sound quality is excellent...unlike Net2phone on all counts. You can call me on Skype, my username is Zenzoidman. Ok, talk to you later.

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Saturday, January 03, 2004

Dryer vent too long.
What's a grasshopper to do?
Shorten vent as shown.

Bask in the joy of the Master's voice.

GE dishwasher,
motor hums but will not start.
Turn motor by hand.

Bask in the joy of the Master's voice.

Friday, January 02, 2004

Awwite all you cool grasshoppers, go grab you a beer and the Samurai'll tell you a story.

Once upon a time, in a place that was called the "land of the free," there was a big ol' company called Dupont. Now, Dupont made a thang that we old timers held near and dear to our hearts and that was R-12, a refrigerant used in just about every type of refrigerator ever made, including beer coolers. But Dupont had a problem: their patent on R-12 was about to expire and everyone else and their momma was gonna start making it, too. Well, it don't take a rocket scientist, like yours truly, to figger out that once this happened, the price of R-12 was gonna take a nose dive.

Now, Dupont, being a company with lots of money to throw around, paid off a bunch of fancy-pants scientists and engineers at these high-dollar universities to show that R-12 was reeeel bad and needed to be banned. So these fancy-pants university types cooked up some numbers showing how all them nasty little molecules in R-12 was eatin' up the orzos in the atmosphere...er somethin' like that.

Anyway, Dupont goes and presents all these high falootin' studies to one of the fourth branches of the gubmint, the EPA. The EPA said, "Hmmm, we can't be eatin' up all them little orzos like that there. Gubmint has to do something about that!" So they came out with a big ol' riot act of new regamalations where they said everyone what works on beer coolers has to have a new-fangled recovery unit to catch all them bad molecules.

Well, I didn't know no better and besides, I didn't wanna hurt them little orzos 'cuz, heck, they ain't never done nothin' to me. So I lined up with all the other suckers, er, I mean, tradesmen and plunked down a bunch of money for a fancy new recovery unit.

Funny thang happened though. When the EPA got into the bidness of regamalating refrigerants, their prices all went sky high. So the cost to replace the compressor on your average beer fridge went from $150 to, oh, say $400, once you figger in the higher refrigerant cost and a refrigerant recovery charge. Well, at that price, people were just hauling their old fridges off to the landfill and buying new ones. Lots of good fridges piling up in landfills today. But, hey, the gubmint knows what's best 'cuz they here to help!

Meanwhile, Dupont is back in bidness, happily raking in the big bucks selling it's new line of R-12 replacement refrigerants. Ain't gubmint great? I think everybody awwta own one!

And so the gubmint and the big shot corporations who benefit from their regamalations all lived happily ever after.

The End

I can tell you that my recovery unit makes a reeel spiffy footstool in my workshop 'cuz that's all I ever use it for. Never even used it once. Wanna buy one cheap?