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Hello Folks, this is Rich from Western Appliance Repair Service in Boise and Meridian Idaho. Here is a picture of a burned up control board on a major-brand dishwasher.  This is one of the worst ones I have ever seen and this damage to the dishwasher was extensive.  When I entered my Boise customers house the smell was STRONG and there was no mistaking the smell of burning circuitry. This burning is caused by loose fitting AC Supply connections at the control board.  This was most-likely caused at the factory.  The “making” and “breaking” of contact on the connector pins causes heat to be generated.  This heat oxidizes and burns the contacts over time -little by little.  As burning and oxidizing gets worse and worse more and more heat are generated the connector eventually melts and flames up.  The dishwasher’s internal safety thermostat should have been triggered.  In this case the safety thermostat was burned and did not stop the AC Current like it was suppose to do.  What saved this from being a house fire was the service panel circuit breaker doing what it was suppose to do – stop current quickly. This dishwasher was a complete loss.  Even if we had replaced the burned wiring and control board the smell would have continued to permeate the house for months if not years.  In this instance it was best to replace the dishwasher with a new one.

If you are not getting water to flow out your refrigerator dispenser nozzle this can be why. When I see a water-dispense problem in the dispenser area of the refrigerator I usually find a bad water inlet valve or a bad actuator switch.  This is most common because the inlet valve is responsible for letting water flow out the nozzle.  The switching is responsible for sending a voltage to a control board or directly to the inlet valve – to turn it on. On this particular Boise repair service call I found something way different then what I was expecting.  I verified the valve and switching were operating perfectly.  I disconnected the water line going into the refrigerator door, on bottom, and verified we had good water flow.  We did.  But, no water flow out the refrigerator’s dispenser nozzle.  There could be no mistake about this, water was being restricted inside of the door.  Buy why?  How?  We would soon find out. I removed the door and pulled the refrigerator water tube out completely and found the water line kinked like you see in the picture.  The question I have and that I can’t fully understand is – How can water flow through that water tube for years, then out of the blue, form a kink.  You have to realize that the water tube is sealed inside the door and is not moving.  Well, here is the proof!  We replace the water line and now the refrigerator is working good. [...]

Our techs at Western Appliance Repair in Boise completed an interesting service call today for a Whirlpool Oven. These pictures show what disassembly is necessary to replace a bad cooling fan motor in a slide-in oven.  The disassembly is quite severe to say the least.  This is not a problem for us however.  We can tackle a job like this one with ease. When we arrived on site we ran a diagnostics program to confirm the blower was indeed not working.  The blower was inoperable and when we actuated the control relays remotely we received no response.  This suggests we may have a bad motor or, as we’ve seen in the past, a bad control board.  In some cases the blower motor AND the main control board will need to be replaced due to compatibility issues.  In this particular case however, the cooling fan was the only thing that was replaced. After repair was completed and new fan installed, we ran a diagnostic program to verify proper fan operation.  Our nice customer informed is that the oven has been working perfectly with no more error messages. A job well done!

GE's latest dishwasher design is a very popular and dependable appliance.  As with most appliances they can and will have minor and major functionality problems.  In this case the dishwasher was not filling the tub with enough water to ensure  proper functionality. Problems like this can be a great inconvenience to our Boise homeowners.  When appliances break down, nobody is happy. When I arrived I ran a diagnostic routine on the appliance and found that indeed, the tub was not filling completely with water - at least to it's specified level.  It would fill with water for about 10 seconds, stop, then fill again for a couple more seconds.  Then, instead of the hearing the wash motor turning on, I would hear a clicking sound - repeatedly.  It appeared the sound was coming from under the toe-kick area of the appliance.  This is where the main control board is located.  Although a problem like this should be verified by doing voltage checks at the control board connector this "clicking" sound is a tell-tale sign of a possible malfunction with control board.  A  faulty control board was verified by looking at a "switching" voltage at the water control valve and an absence of a control voltage at the dishwasher wash motor. Well, long story short, I arrived today, installed a brand new control board, and the now the dishwasher functions great! I will have a Youtube video on this replacement procedure so if you would like to subscribe to my channel [...]

Refrigerators are one of the most popular and important appliances we own in our house.  It keeps our food cold and without it, especially in the summer, we’re left with food that will become rotten or stale.  Our drinks will become warm and our beer lovers will be left sipping warm suds.  This is not a good thing. There are a number of different refrigerator configurations available: Top-Mount, Bottom-Mount, French-Door, and Side-by-Side. The Top-Mount name refers to where the freezer is located.  In this case the freezer is located on the top of the unit. In the Bottom-Mount unit, the freezer is on the bottom. The side-by-side refrigerator is the most popular in Boise.  The freezer is usually located on the left hand side of the unit. The French-Door refrigerator is a combination of the Top-Mount and the Side-by-Side.  The refrigerator will be on top with two swinging doors and the freezer will be on the bottom, usually a pull-out drawer. Why the emphasis on where the freezer is located?  This is because the cool air in the refrigerator comes from the freezer via an evaporator fan.  The freezer is the “main” cooling unit which houses the evaporator and evaporator fan- motor to supply freezing air for the freezer and cool air to the refrigerator. So, what kind of repairs do make on refrigerators in Boise?  Well, here’s a few things we end up replacing – condenser fan motors, evaporator fan motors, blades, thermostats, compressors, control-boards, broken dispenser arms, ice-makers, [...]