Also on the truck · Eastside
The other five
$99 to diagnose, one written figure, printed coverage — the same for every machine we take in Eastside.
Ice makers in Eastside refrigerators drink city water through copper lines that were run along a basement joist in 1985 and tapped with a saddle valve.
Weekdays 7:30–5:30 · Saturday 9–1 · closed Sunday · Woodland Square Loop, at the Olympia–Lacey line
$99 to diagnose, one written figure, printed coverage — the same for every machine we take in Eastside.
The ice maker in a Bigelow kitchen is fed by a quarter-inch line that leaves the basement through a hole drilled decades ago, runs behind the cabinets, and kinks every time the refrigerator gets pulled out to sweep. The water is Olympia's, moderately hard with some manganese, so the fill valve slowly narrows and the filter clogs sooner than the indicator admits.
Downstairs, the second refrigerator may have an ice maker that was never connected, or one on a saddle valve that has been weeping onto the floor since the last owner. We treat the ice maker as a machine in its own right, test the water path from the valve to the mold, and tell you what actually stopped.
Self-piercing saddle valves on old copper lines were quick to install and are slow to fail, dripping a little more each year until the floor under the fridge is soft. We shut it off, replace the fitting with a proper shutoff on the existing line, and check the refrigerator's own inlet valve for scale while the water is off. The subfloor gets an honest look too.
A quarter-inch copper line that has been bent behind a refrigerator a dozen times eventually pinches shut. The ice maker fills partway, the cubes shrink, and then nothing. We trace the line, find the kink, and replace the damaged run with new tubing, leaving a service loop so the next time the fridge rolls out, the line survives.
An ice maker waits for the mold to reach a set temperature before it harvests. If the freezer is hovering in the upper teens because of a dirty condenser or a failing fan, the module just sits. We log the freezer temperature, fix the cooling problem first, and then confirm the ice maker cycles on its own once it is cold enough.
When the fingers that push ice out of the mold stop partway through their sweep, the module motor has stalled or an ice cube has frozen to the mold because of a weak mold heater. We unstick the arm, test the motor and heater, and replace the module when the gear train has worn. A stuck arm is also the reason many makers appear to be switched off.
Refrigerator filters on Olympia water load with fine sediment and manganese well before the reminder light comes on. The result is thin cubes and a dispenser that dribbles. We measure fill volume with and without the filter in place, replace it if that is the bottleneck, and check the valve so a new filter does not hide a scaled valve behind it.
Basement refrigerators run cold and unopened, so a fill tube that gets the slightest dribble from a leaky valve freezes into a plug. We thaw the tube, confirm the inlet valve closes fully, and swap it when it weeps. Where the model has a tube heater, we test that as well so the plug does not return by spring.
Diagnosis costs $99 and includes the testing, an everyday-language account of which part quit, and one written figure for the repair. If you go forward, the $99 is inside that figure; if you do not, $99 is all we ask for the visit. There is no travel charge, the shop being the next neighborhood over across the Lacey line, and no repair price gets quoted until someone has actually looked at the machine.
For landlords and for adult children handling a parent's Eastside house from out of town, we accept text approval and email the invoice with the printed warranty term. Any code for the side door or garage is deleted once the job closes. Where a newer refrigerator still carries the maker's coverage on its ice maker, that gets mentioned before any part is ordered.
If there is a water line within reach, we can connect the refrigerator to it with proper tubing and a real shutoff instead of a saddle valve. Running a new line from the main across the basement is a plumber's job, and we will tell you where the boundary falls before any work starts.
Stale ice absorbs freezer odors, a spent filter stops removing taste, and a plastic supply line that has aged can flavor the water. A new filter, a flushed line, and a washed-out bin fix most of it, and a stale plastic line gets swapped for the right tubing. Ice in a basement fridge that is rarely opened should be dumped now and then.
It lives on the border, and we handle it. The saddle valve is part of the refrigerator's water supply, and replacing it with a proper shutoff on the existing line is routine for us. If the copper behind it is failing or there is no accessible shutoff at all, that becomes a plumber's job and we say so.
Intermittent ice usually means the freezer is drifting warm between compressor cycles, the fill valve is opening only sometimes because of scale, or the filter is nearly blocked. We log the freezer temperature over the visit and measure fill volume, which separates a cooling problem from a water problem before anything is replaced.
No. The tenant lets the technician in, we diagnose, and you approve the written figure by text from wherever you are. The invoice arrives by email with the printed warranty term. We do not hold keys, and the door code you give us is removed from our records when the job closes.
The price goes on paper before a screw comes out.
Ring or use the form; a phone photo of the display or the model sticker saves a step. We ring back with an arrival window and text again as the van pulls off Woodland Square Loop.
The technician tests the suspect part with instruments, tells you in plain words what gave out, and writes the repair down as a single price. Your $99 is already inside that number.
Fill valves, defrost heaters, igniters, drum rollers, drain pumps, relays — the things well water, salt air and PSE outages wear out on this shore of the inlet. If we have to order something, the second trip is ours to make, not yours to pay for.
You watch the machine finish a whole cycle, the kick panels and the floor go back the way they were, and the warranty term is typed onto the invoice.
Tell us over the phone. For $99 a technician tests the machine and writes the repair down as one price with that $99 folded in, and the invoice carries the warranty term in print.
