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Leaking Front Load Washer

by in About Appliances, Repairs

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Leaks can occur on these machines for many different reasons. The most common though, is leaking due to damage to the door boot (or bellow as it is also commonly called.) It does not take much for a leak to develop.  In this case the customer had shut the door with an item of clothing trapped between the door boot and the bottom of the door glass. When the unit went into its spin cycle, it pulled on the gasket hard enough to change the shape of the flap that seals to the bottom of the door. This unit was not leaking much – maybe a tablespoon per load, but it was definitely caused by this little wrinkle.

If yours is leaking and there are no obvious tears or holes in the door boot, then take a look at the bottom edge and see if it is a bit misshapen.  If it is, a door boot replacement is what you’ll be doing to fix it.

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Contaminated Refrigeration System

by in Repairs, Tech Tip

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If this dark brown stuff is coming out of your filter/dryer when you push nitrogen through it, you can be sure that your sealed system is pooched. I tried everything I could to get this system dry, but it would restrict every time within about 2 mins of startup.  The only way to get this unit going again will be to replace evaporator, compressor, condenser and heat exchanger – pretty much the whole system. Not worth it on this one.

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Whirlpool French Door Freezer Door Not Closing All The Way

by in Repairs, Tech Tip

If the ice bucket scoop is put into the holder the wrong way, it will hold the freezer drawer open and cause cooling problems.

There is a slight glitch in the video at the beginning – what I was showing is that the freezer door is being held open about a finger thickness. Not enough to turn the light on and trigger the door alarm, but enough to coat the evaporator and warm up both sections.

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Kitchen Aid Dishwasher Board Replacement

by in Repairs

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Sometimes its really not too hard to diagnose a problem.

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Dryer Element Shorted to Ground

by in Repairs, Tech Tip

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Here is another dryer element that shorted out to ground. This means that whenever the dryer was on, even on the air fluff cycle, the element was going full blast. This took out the safety cut-out fuse. 

From now on, unless I see really bad venting issues on blown safety cut-out fuse jobs, I’m checking the element to make sure it is not grounded.

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F20 On A Duet Washer

by in Repairs

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F20 is the code that the machine flashes up when it does not sense water entering. This can be a bad valve, or the water source turned off or even the flood stop hoses that some people use. In this case it was a poorly routed pressure switch hose. The hose was routed in a way that allowed it to rub against the back of the tub. It took 2 years but it finally rubbed a hole through the hose which meant that the pressure was being released and so the pressure switch kept calling for water.

A new hose routed properly and all is up and running again.

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Burnt Out Control Board

by in Repairs

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Sometimes when a control board blows …. it REALLY blows!

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Replacing a Torn Door Boot on a Duet Washer

by in Repairs, Tech Tip

Some guys were wondering how to replace a door boot on a Whirlpool Duet washer without removing the front panel. This is how I do it.

Please excuse the background noise on the video – this was recorded with my cell phone ….

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Don’t Bypass Safety Devices

by in About Appliances, Opinion, Repairs

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Bypassing safety devices like fuses and overheat thermostats is about the dumbest thing you could do to your appliance. Those devices are there for safety. If something were to go wrong, those devices will save your life!

This is another dryer with a grounded out heating element. It got hot enough to blow the high temp safety thermostat. Somebody (not sure who) decided to just bypass the thermostat and keep using the dryer. They are lucky they did not have a house fire with this one!

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Warped Dryer Heating Element

by in Repairs

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This was a unique problem. The complaint on this Whirlpool dryer was that the drum would not turn, but the heating element was on. Right away this is a hint as to where the problem was. The element should never be able to be on if the drum is not turning.

So I pulled the back off and removed the element. When I flipped it over it was easy to see what the problem was. The plate that holds the element has warped which was causing the element to ground out. This means that anytime the dryer is on, it will be on and would not cycle off.

Replaced the element and the open safety thermal fuse and all is well.

 

EDIT:  Oct 24, 2011  Here is another one.  See how the center support warped up enough to touch the element.

 

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