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New Appliances are not as Good as Older Appliances
…. yet, there have always been appliance repairmen.
This is a conversation that I have almost everyday. Seems like everyone has an old fridge or chest freezer in the basement that has ‘never needed a day of service.’ While in general I do believe that appliances made today will not last as long as older stuff did, I do see large differences between the appliances of yesteryear and today. i.e. fridges of more or less the same exterior dimensions hold almost 2x the food that older fridges did due to better insulation and lighter construction. Your old washer (top load style) would consume around 40 gallons per load where the new High Efficiency (HE) machines use as little as 5 gallons. The water savings are much the same in dishwashers as well.
Further, because of energy regulations, manufacturers are producing appliances with motors that are ‘just big enough’ to save energy rather than being way oversized which consumed a lot more energy. Oh … and all the complaints about electronics in stoves? They are more accurate with their temperature control now than they’ve ever been. I know people complain whenever they get a new oven or stove that it does not heat ‘properly’ but after testing, all I can ever show is that the set temperature is dead accurate. It is most often the case that people are used to the way their old stove cooked and sometimes have to adjust recipes and methods to match an appliance that is at temp rather than being 15 or 20 degrees too hot or too cool. (I use Betty Crocker cake mixes for testing … they come out great in a wide range of cooking environments, and are a great snack on a busy day. lol.)
My final thought on this topic is that modern appliances have way to many features and options. This is due to both consumer demand and regulation, but either way the multiple options and settings tend to cause more confusion than any help they may provide. I’ve ‘reset’ countless washers that were ‘not getting the clothes clean’ to use warm water instead of cold … higher water levels instead of ‘eco’ settings and less soap rather than ‘more is better.’ Too many options = confusion and a bad appliance experience.
The one thing I know is that as long as there are appliances, there will be appliance repair people!
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How To Install the New Drain Tube to Fix a Whirlpool Fridge Leaking Water
Here is a video of how I install the new drain tube that Whirlpool has produced to replace the sticking grommet that causes Whirlpool, Kitchen Aid and Maytag fridges to leak water. The part number on this kit is W10619951 and Whirlpool usually covers the price of the part for 2 years within the date of purchase. Call them at 1-800-807-6777 to see if you qualify for this part replacement. Here is the video … enjoy!
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7akWydOJyhc
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Mobile Office – Printer Setup
I often get asked how I have my ‘mobile office’ printer setup so that I’m able to print receipts or manuals or pretty much anything I need while on the road. I use 3 things:
1. My Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phone. (Bigger is better in this case! lol)
2. An app called PrinterShare
3. A HP Officejet 100 Mobile Printer – a Bluetooth battery operated printerHere’s the setup in action:
httpvh://youtu.be/Qlihtbvz4T0
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Using Clamps to Service a Washer Full of Water
This is a quick little tech tip for guys who are servicing washers that are not draining … and have a tub full of water. I use these flat paddle clamps that I got at a local hardware store for cheap. They work perfectly! Enjoy.
httpvh://youtu.be/qOCp-O0ecgA
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Whirlpool Dishwasher Leaving Bits of Food on Dishes
This was an interesting one that I eventually figured out today. Customer complaint was that her dishes were not getting clean she also mentioned that her rinse agent dispenser was not emptying – she never had to fill it as it was always full. She mentioned this as an aside, but her main complaint was the washing issue.
As a tech, sometimes the solution is in the details … it’s the little inconsequential stuff that can put you on the right track when working out a problem like this. This is why the best diagnostic tool in your kit is often your ears. It took me a long time to learn to close my mouth in customers kitchens and just listen … let him/her talk out the problem they are experiencing. Sometimes you have to wade through a lot of gunk to get to the good stuff … lol, but more often than not, the solution is in the description of the problem. In this case, the customer mentioned the rinse agent as she was going out the door. Thanks goodness she did as this is what I found:
httpvh://youtu.be/G5aqMvREfDE
So – for this one, the soap and rinse agent dispenser is activated 100% of the time when ever the door is shut on this dishwasher.
This creates two issues:
1. The dishes are not getting clean or dry.
2. There is a potential fire hazard here – if that door stayed shut long enough and the wax motor stayed energized long enough, it could begin to overheat and melt down. As it was, it was too hot to hold my finger on for longer than a second or two and that was just after 10 minutes of activation. Imagine how hot it would be after being activated overnight!I will replace the electronic control on this one and verify that the dispenser is working normally again. If anything further shows up, I’ll report as an edit here.
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Leaking Frigidaire Dishwasher
This was a fun problem that I found on this leaking Frigidaire Dishwasher last week. Customer complaint was leaking … but it only leaks about once a week or so. So it turns out that she bakes buns with her Kitchen Aid Mixer about once a week and when she is done, she loads the mixer bowl into the dishwasher, and it leaks. All the other loads during the week = no leaks! What a strange problem! lol. Well, here was what I found …
httpvh://youtu.be/jhXsjLErxxU
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Using a Temp Recorder For Fridge Diagnosis
I had a Whirlpool Freezer that was giving me a bit of trouble with the diagnosis. This freezer was stuffed completely full with harvest goods and the customer was really getting worried that stuff was not cold enough. After getting his food into a loaner freezer, I put a temperature recorder into it for 5 days to see what was happening (or in this case, not happening.) Below is a graph of the temperatures and relative humidity in this unit.
… oh look – No defrost cycles!!
A freezer like this defrosts every 6 to 12 hours based on a timer. In this case there are no associated rises in temp or relative humidity that would indicate a defrost cycle. When I was testing this unit, I could put it into defrost manually, so I know the defrost circuitry is good, the only part left is the defrost timer = easy repair!
This is the temp recorder that I use:
If you want to get a recorder for this type of work, this one is basically the same unit and is available from Amazon: Extech RHT10 Humidity And Temperature USB Datalogger
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How To Test a Whirlpool Duet Washer Motor
This video shows how to test a Whirlpool (or Maytag, Amana, Inglis) Duet style washer motor with the integrated MCU (Motor Control Unit.) The MCU used to be separate from the motor, but is now attached to the back of the motor. Testing is very much the same as when the MCU was a separate device, but I thought I would show testing on the newer style with the MCU attached.
WARNING!! This is a live test – that means that there is power (which can hurt you) and the belt, pulley and motor may spin (which can also put a world of hurt on you!) Be aware of what you are doing and where you are at while doing these tests. I accept no responsibility for any problems you encounter if you attempt to do this yourself. That being said – Enjoy!
httpvh://youtu.be/USwxpyS151A
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New Stove Exterior Really Hot
I’ve been getting more complaints these days about the outside of new stoves being way too hot. I’ve called several manufacturers about this issue and am getting the same answer across the board: Normal!
Apparently they have been approved with the higher temp ratings by CSA here in Canada and UL in the States. Not sure if these are new ratings that have been approved or if the exterior temp ratings have always been this high and I’ve just not noticed if before.
The temps are hot enough to burn you if you touch the stove in the wrong place or if you leave your hand on the stove long enough.
Here is a picture of the temps:
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Squareup NOT Ready for Canada
Several weeks ago I began my search for a mobile credit card reader that would allow me to take Visa and Mastercard from my customers. Rather than going with an expensive Point of Sale (POS) machine from one of the banks, I’ve been exploring the various mobile phone readers. These readers are little devices that attach to your Android or iPhone that allow a card to be swiped and a transaction completed. For the convenience of this service, you pay a certain percentage to the company supplying the device. There are a number of companies offering these mobile readers including Payfirma, Paypal, Intuit, Payd and Squarup.Squareup recently opened up in Canada, so I thought I would give them a try. They have good rates and their reader is free. Unfortunately, that is about as good as it gets with this company. I went through their signup process and online ‘verification of identity’ and received back a rather cryptic message saying that I could not be verified at this time, but someone from their customer service department would contact me shortly. I waited a week – no contact. So I emailed them back and asked what was going on. ‘Violet’ replied, “Thanks for writing in. It looks like you have not yet completed activating your Square account. To complete activation, please log in to your Square Dashboard at https://squareup.com/activate.” Ok, well I went through the complete process on your site … not sure how I did not ‘complete’ my activation but whatever. Back to their site and through the signup process again.
This time I get a message saying that my identity could not be verified. Keep in mind that during the signup process I had supplied them with my Social Insurance number as well as other pieces of information about where I live and where I do my banking. This time the customer service person (‘Sally’) said she would ‘reset’ my application and gave me some suggestions why my application had be denied. One of the reasons given was if I had moved recently, that I should enter my old address. So – back to the signup form (third time.) I went through all the questions, etc but this time used my Ontario address instead of where I really live here in Manitoba. (I moved about 2 months ago.)
This time I got this message: “We’re unable to approve you at this time. We’re working hard to approve as many people as possible as we launch in Canada. We’ll get back to you when we can activate you to accept payment cards.”
So I emailed them again. This is the reply from ‘Sally’:
Thanks for writing back in. It looks like your application was again declined because we were unable to verify your identity during the activation process.
Our decision remains that we can not approve your request to accept card payments with Square. There is nothing more we can do for you at this time.
We are working hard to activate more people. Should we have an update, we’ll let you know.Thanks for your understanding.
Sincerely,
“Thanks for my understanding”??? I DON’T understand. I am who I say I am. I run a very public business. My phone numbers, names, personal identity and history is all over the internet. It is very easy to ‘verify’ who I am. They have simply made a decision based on some automated verification process that for whatever reason my application information fails. That’s it. Period.
This is the line that irritates me the most, “There is nothing more we can do for you at this time.” What they really mean is ‘there is nothing more we are going to do for you …’. It’s not that there is nothing they ‘can’ do, just that they are not willing to do any further steps to verify who I am … even though it is their process that has denied me. What would it take? A phone call? An email to my bank? A copy of some communication from Revenue Canada with my name and address on it? How hard is that?? If your verification process is so strict, what about having a department of ‘live’ people (preferably in Canada … )
Conclusion: Squareup is NOT ready for the big time yet. They appear to be a narrow-minded, unresponsive company who is looking to get as many signups as they can without actually doing any work. My advice is to skip Squareup and work with any of the other companies that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Will try Paypal now.
Update Feb 14/13:
I have never heard anything back from Squareup. I’ve emailed them a couple of more times asking for them to provide some other way of verifying me, but they don’t even reply to the emails now. This is a perfect example of how to NOT do customer service!
Paypal is in exclusive testing here in Canada right now, and are not accepting new testers – so I will wait and try them later.
So I decided to give PAYd a try. They offer the exact same type of product at virtually the same rates as Squareup and Paypal. The signup was easy – just my basic information and a few verification questions – and 24 hours later I get this in my inbox:
Dear Todd,
We’re pleased to let you know that your PAYD™ account has been approved! Follow the instructions on this email to begin accepting credit cards today. Here is your PAYD merchant and store ID. Keep this information handy for future reference.
So – PAYD! was able to verify me with EXACTLY the same information as what I gave Squareup, and within 24 hours I was setup and ready to take credit cards.
Based on my experiences with both companies – well, it’s not even a contest. Don’t even waste your time with Squareup – go with PAYD!
