This was a somewhat convoluted repair, but I'll try and be brief ;)…read more
I contacted Kongra appliance repair on Yelp and asked for assistance with a refrigerator that suddenly had decided to stop keeping cool.
It's a Maytag side-by-side, and it's had some issues with the freezer coils icing up very 12-18months, and I'd just manually defrost them myself, but the fridge thing was new. Note, the appliance is more than 20 years old, but it's worked very well all this time that I really wanted to first see what it would cost to fix it before entertaining the idea of a forklift upgrade and buying a whole new unit.
Russ came out that day and quickly identified a faulty damper (mechanically controlled 'vent' that lets cold freezer air into the refrigerator side), but wasn't certain the part would be available given the appliance's age.
The next day he told me he HAD found a source for the part, and it'd arrive in a couple of days. Since my fridge was holding at 60F, I was incentivized to get the repair done ASAP. My freezer, at the time, was still pumping down to -10F.
Two days later, Russ's co-worker "Kevin" came out and installed the new damper. It was not a simple process given it's mounted between the two sides (Freezer/Fridge), under the thermostat controls and in the far back corner. He got it installed, and confirmed it was toggling open and closed...However, during this time, my freezer started to NOT keep cold anymore and was up to 30F.
In the past, when the coils iced up, this would happen, but I had just done the manual defrost 10 weeks ago. I asked if the damper could have had anything to do with the freezer issues, and he confirmed, that no, couldn't be related.
Trying to figure out why the freezer wasn't pumping down anymore led to discussions of the possibility I could have a coolant leak, bad compressor and other potential more than $1500 costs (meaning, just buy a new appliance) which they'd need to come out and check to confirm. In the meantime, I said I'd check the coils again to see if they had iced up.
So, I checked the coils, and again, much sooner than usual, they were completely covered in ice, so I did another manual defrost using the recommendation Kevin provided which was much better than what I've been doing over the years.
I asked Russ, since we were working on the appliance anyway, if he could check to see if my defrost function was working (since it didn't appear to be). Post coil defrost, the freezer was cooling down again so it was clear this wasn't a compressor or coolant issue (yay).
Kevin came out and confirmed the defrost heating element resistance was in spec, the thermostat controller was working and there was nothing in the freezer side that would be causing the ice up...so, back to the fridge side to check the logic board.
He confirmed that the logic board's defrost function wasn't working right, so they found a new controller for me (for a greater than 20year old appliance). One day later they had it in hand to install.
After installation, Kevin confirmed by triggering the defrost that the new board was working properly.
With my de-iced coils, new damper and now new controller board, I waited a weekend to see if everything would still keep working.
After 2 days, my fridge was down to 40F, my freezer was back at -10F, and I can hear the compressor cycling on and off as the defrost function runs (which I haven't heard in years, but didn't know I should have been listening for).
Everything is working great, and I really appreciate the fact that my invoiced price didn't increase even though it seemed clear the level of difficulty they anticipated was greater.
Very happy with the service, communication, speed of resolution, knowledge and friendliness of Russ and Kevin and highly recommend them.
