ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Appliance servicemen

When the code changed and required separate neutral and ground on dryers it messed up all the delivery guys. I have seen them change the old 3 wire receptacle to a 4 wire (no ground) a 4 wire to a 3 wire, use a 4 wire cord leaving the ground loose and the bond on. Or leaving the bond on and a 4 wire cord.
And speaking of dryers, I could not count the number of dryer ckts here that were wired with 10-2 w/g even with inspectors approval, something that NEVER has been code approved.

Now that is spooky I did see that as well almost ready say get new conductors and be done right.

I did check with State of Wisconsin it kinda mixed bag on applanice repairs.

{ in France it must be done with cerified electrician to proprely hookup electric applanices if fuel gaz it must be done by qualifed gaz fitter or plummer if they have gaz cerifiton for it.}

Merci,Marc

Trumpy,

I use to repair appliances when I was in business and only as a courtesy to my best customers. I didn't like it. There were too many things to go wrong. Now with all of the new electronics in the appliances, I would be scared to death to try and repair something.

The only problem with the "new electronics" in modern appliances is the price of the parts you have to stock.
Nobody really fixes the cards and they get sold at a 500% markup or more.
They put this stuff in there because it is cheaper at the manufacturing level, buying 10,000 at a time but when you get in the "1 or 2 at a time" level they get real expensive.

Personally I won't buy any new appliance with the soft pad button/solid state controller and that has me nursing a Carter administration wall oven along.
When it finally dies of something I can't replace, like the whole cabinet rusts out, I only hope I can find an "electronic" one that will still take the whole mechanical timer/thermostat control panel as an assembly. Maybe I can find a relatively new one that was blown up by lightning ;-)

Indeed Harold,
Appliances have changed considerably since I did my time and I can fully agree with what you are saying.
To say appliance servicing is a specialised thing, doesn't really give it the respect it deserves.

Having said that,
Those that are still in it over here, are only in it because they have an almost intimate relationship with spare parts suppliers.

If I can't get parts for a pretty much generic appliance off the shelf at the supply store, I'm more or less stuffed as to repairing the appliance.

I've fixed a few ovens, fridges and the odd TV set for relatives (Can't deny my own family of hot food, cold beers and rugby! ) over the last few years, but that is about as far as I am willing to go into appliance repair, I understand how these appliances work.

But at the end of the day, it also has to be an economical repair as well, sure you might have fixed the thing, but if it took you say, 2 days to diagnose and repair the thing, you aren't going to ever break even.

As Greg mentioned above, with electronics becoming the rule of the land as far as appliances go nowadays, I'd sooner get a guy that knows the appliance, rather that have me muck the whole thing up, besides, if he works with them all the time, he's more than likely to have the proper service manuals for it as well.

the ceiling fan one is kind of expected in my opinion