- Coverage120 ZIP codes · 4 counties
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Reference · 58 questions across 8 sections
Appliance repair questions, answered
Everything our Greater Boston coordinators are asked most often — about the machine, the price, the warranty and how far out we come. Answers are on this page or one click from it.
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13 questions · answered here
Can we fix it?
The repairs people ask about before they pick up the phone: what usually causes each fault and what the fix involves.
Can you fix a stove top that won't light or heat?
Yes. On a gas top, a burner that clicks but will not light is usually a fouled igniter, a blocked burner port or a tired spark module; one that will not click at all points to the switch or the module. On an electric top, a dead burner is the element, its terminal block or the infinite switch behind the knob. All of these are routine one-visit repairs when the part is on the van. If you ever smell gas, leave the room, touch no switches and call your gas company first.
Can you fix a washer that won't spin?
Yes, and it is one of the calls we take most. Most machines that will not spin are really machines that will not drain: a blocked pump filter, a sock in the pump or a kinked drain hose stops the spin long before a motor fails. After that come the lid or door lock, a worn belt on belt-driven models and, less often, the motor control board. We rule out the drain first because it is the cheapest cause.
Can you fix a dryer heating element?
Yes. On an electric dryer the element is a common replacement, but it seldom fails by itself: a restricted exhaust makes it run hot until it breaks or trips the thermal cut-off. So we replace the element and then check the duct run to the outside wall, or the new one goes the same way. On a gas dryer the matching parts are the igniter, the flame sensor and the gas valve coils.
Can you fix a refrigerator or freezer door seal?
Yes. A gasket that has torn, flattened or pulled away lets warm, damp air in, which shows up as frost, sweating along the door edge or a compressor that never rests. Sometimes the cure is re-seating the gasket or lifting a sagging door rather than a new seal. When it does need replacing we order the gasket for your exact model, so a photo of the model sticker when you book saves a trip.
Can you fix an ice maker that stopped making ice?
Yes, whether it sits inside a refrigerator or is a standalone undercounter unit. The usual culprits are a frozen fill tube, a failed water inlet valve, a clogged filter or a module that no longer cycles. We check the supply to the machine first, because a half-closed valve behind the fridge looks exactly like a dead ice maker.
Can you fix a microwave that runs but doesn't heat?
Often, yes. When the turntable turns and the light is on but the food stays cold, the high-voltage side has failed: usually the diode, the capacitor, the magnetron or a door switch. That circuit can hold a dangerous charge after the plug is pulled, so it is never a do-it-yourself job. On a small countertop model the repair can come close to the price of a new one, and we will tell you so.
Can you fix a dishwasher door spring?
Yes. A door that drops open or will not stay where you put it almost always has a broken spring or a snapped hinge cable. Springs come in pairs and we fit both, because the surviving one is just as old. It is a short job, though on some models the dishwasher has to slide out of the cabinet to reach them.
Can you repair a wine cooler that won't stay cold?
Yes, for compressor and thermoelectric models alike. On compressor units the usual causes are a dusty condenser, a failed fan, a start relay or, less often, a slow refrigerant leak. Thermoelectric coolers depend on a Peltier module and its fans, and they struggle in a warm room by design. Built-in units often fail simply because the front grille is blocked and the machine cannot breathe.
Can you fix a refrigerator compressor?
Sometimes. What looks like a dead compressor is often its start relay, its overload or the inverter board that drives it, and those are straightforward parts. A compressor that has genuinely failed means recovering the refrigerant, brazing in a new one and recharging under EPA 608 rules, which is major work. On an older mass-market fridge that can cost more than the fridge is worth, and we say so before you commit.
Can you fix a cracked glass cooktop?
Usually, by replacing the glass top rather than the whole cooktop. On most radiant and induction models the glass is its own part, and it must be the exact one for your model because the elements and sensors sit right beneath it. Stop using a cracked top in the meantime: spills can reach live parts through the crack.
Can you fix a washer drum that bangs or won't turn?
Yes. Banging on the spin usually comes from worn suspension springs or shock absorbers on a top-loader, or from failed drum bearings on a front-loader, which also roar as they speed up. Bearings are the bigger job because the tub has to come apart, so on an older machine we weigh that against replacement before we start.
Can you fix a dryer that won't turn?
Yes. If the motor hums but the drum stays still, the drive belt has usually snapped or slipped off its pulley; if nothing happens at all, the door switch and the thermal fuse come first. Worn drum rollers and idler pulleys squeal for weeks before they seize. Belts, rollers and fuses are parts we keep on the van.
Do you repair induction cooktops and ranges?
Yes. Induction faults are mostly electronic: a power board, a coil sensor, a cooling fan or the glass touch panel, and many of them show an error code before anything else. Tell us the code and the model number when you call and we can often name the likely part before the visit, which means it is on the van when we arrive.
Sounds like your machine?
8 questions · answered here
Repair or replace?
How long each appliance typically lasts, and the point at which a new one is the better spend.
Is it worth repairing a refrigerator?
Usually, when the fault is a fan, a defrost part, a thermostat or a board. Industry estimates put a refrigerator's typical life at around 13 years. Our rule is simple: if the repair nears half the price of a comparable new fridge and the machine is past two-thirds of its expected life, replacing is the better buy, and we tell you that. Built-in and panel-ready models are the exception; they are almost always worth fixing.
How long do dishwashers last, and is one worth fixing?
Nine to ten years is the usual estimate. Pumps, door springs, latches, inlet valves and heating elements are all worth replacing inside that span. Past it, a dead control board or a leaking tub is normally the point to replace. Scale shortens that life in hard-water towns; on soft MWRA water a dishwasher tends to wear out rather than scale up.
Is it worth repairing a dryer?
Nearly always, because a dryer is a simple machine. Typical life runs from about 10 to 13 years, and the parts that fail, such as belts, rollers, thermal fuses, elements and igniters, are inexpensive. The exceptions are a drum rusted through or a failed main board on a very old unit. Replacing a dryer without clearing a blocked vent simply moves the fault to the new one.
How long does a washing machine last, and when should it be replaced?
About ten years is the common estimate, less for a machine that runs daily for a large household. Drain pumps, lids and door locks, belts and inlet valves are routine repairs worth doing. Worn bearings on an older front-loader, or a cracked outer tub, is usually where a new machine makes more sense.
Is it worth repairing an oven, stove or range?
Usually yes. Cooking appliances often run 13 to 15 years, and their common failures, igniters, bake elements, temperature sensors and switches, are affordable parts. A gas range in particular tends to outlast its electronics, so a new control board in a sound range is often a sensible spend. Dual-fuel and professional-style ranges are nearly always worth repairing.
Is it worth fixing an over-the-range microwave?
More often than a countertop one. An over-the-range unit is also your hood and is bolted into the cabinetry, so a door switch, diode, magnetron or fan usually costs less than a new unit plus the installation. Typical life is around nine years. A countertop microwave that stops heating, by contrast, is often cheaper to replace.
Is a freezer worth repairing?
Chest and upright freezers commonly last 11 years or more, and faults in the thermostat, the defrost system, the fans or the door seal are worth fixing at almost any age. A failed compressor on an older unit is the usual exception. While you wait for the visit, keep the lid or door shut: a full freezer holds its temperature far longer than a half-empty one.
Is it worth repairing a wine cooler?
For a built-in or dual-zone unit set into cabinetry, usually yes, because replacing it means finding one that fits the same opening. For a small freestanding thermoelectric cooler, a failed module can cost nearly as much as a new unit. Compressor coolers with a fan, relay or thermostat fault are good repairs at most ages.
Want a straight answer on yours?
4 questions · answered here
Coverage across Greater Boston
Which towns and ZIP codes are in, how the routes are grouped, and the one date in the calendar that changes everything.
Do you serve all of Greater Boston?
Yes — 120 ZIP codes across Suffolk, Middlesex, Norfolk and Essex County. That is every Boston neighbourhood from Charlestown to Hyde Park, the inner ring through Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Newton and Quincy, the Route 128 towns, and the North Shore out to Gloucester and Rockport.
Do you serve Cambridge, Somerville, and Newton?
Yes — Cambridge, Somerville, Newton, Brookline, Quincy, Medford, Malden, Arlington, Waltham, Watertown, Lynn and Salem all get same-day service, and each sits on a named route rather than being treated as an outlying call.
Do you cover the North Shore?
We do. Lynn, Swampscott, Marblehead, Salem, Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, Gloucester, Rockport, Ipswich, Manchester and Nahant are all in coverage. North Shore calls are grouped onto a single run because the drive is real, so booking before midday matters more there than it does inside 128.
Can you get to a September 1 move-in?
September 1 is the single busiest residential day in Greater Boston and we plan for it. Leases across Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Allston and Brighton turn over on the same date, which means a wave of appliances that worked in August and do not work on the 2nd — usually because a machine was dragged, re-levelled badly, or reconnected to a shut-off nobody had opened in a year. Book ahead of the date if you can; we hold capacity for it.
120 ZIP codes across 35 areas in four counties. Browse every service area to check your own town.
Not sure your street is on a route?
15 questions · answered here
Your appliance
The symptoms we are called out to most, and what they usually turn out to be. Several of these describe a machine that is not actually broken.
Refrigerator
Refrigerator repair page →My refrigerator is cold in the freezer but warm in the fridge — is it dying?
Usually not. That split is the classic signature of an airflow or defrost problem rather than a failed compressor: the freezer is still making cold, it just is not reaching the fresh-food compartment. The usual causes are an evaporator iced over because the defrost heater stopped clearing it, or a failed evaporator fan. Both are at the inexpensive end of refrigeration work, and both get misdiagnosed as a dead compressor.
How much should refrigerator repair cost in Boston?
Airflow, defrost and fan repairs generally land in the low-to-mid hundreds. Sealed-system work — a refrigerant leak, a restriction, a failed compressor — sits well above that, and on a mass-market unit past two-thirds of its life it usually is not worth doing. We establish which of the two you are facing during the diagnosis, before you have committed to anything.
My second fridge in the garage keeps failing. Why?
Most domestic refrigeration is rated for an ambient range that a New England garage or an unheated back porch leaves behind twice a year. In a Boston July the condenser cannot reject heat fast enough and the compressor runs continuously; in January a single-compressor unit stops calling for cooling at all because the fresh-food side is already cold, and the freezer quietly thaws while the appliance reports no fault. Garage-ready models handle this. No repair converts a standard one into one.
Washer
Washer repair page →My washer will not spin. Is the motor gone?
Rarely. A machine that will not spin is usually failing to drain first — and it will not spin on a full tub by design. Check the drain filter before anything else; obstructions there account for far more no-spin calls than motors or control boards do. If the drain path is clear, the next suspects are the door or lid switch and the drive coupling, in that order.
What do the error codes actually mean?
They report a condition the machine can detect, not the component that caused it. A fill error means the expected water did not arrive — which could be supply pressure, a blocked inlet screen, a scaled valve or a level sensor reading wrong. That is why we diagnose rather than order the part the code seems to name.
Why does my washer smell?
Standing water somewhere it should not be — the sump, the filter, the drain line — plus biofilm on the door gasket. Front-loaders are more prone to it because the gasket holds moisture between cycles. It is a drainage and sealing problem, and left alone it usually turns into a harder fault later.
Dryer
Dryer repair page →I replaced the heating element and it failed again. Why?
Because the element was not the fault. A dryer is a fan with a heater attached; restrict the exhaust and the machine runs the heater into its thermal cut-off until the heater fails. Fitting a new element into a blocked vent destroys the new one exactly the same way. We measure airflow rather than guessing at it, and where the run is genuinely too long for the appliance we say so.
How much does dryer repair cost?
Most dryer repairs are at the inexpensive end — thermal fuses, cut-offs, belts, idler pulleys, igniters and elements are all modest parts, and the labour is straightforward. What costs more is the case where the real fault is the duct rather than the appliance, because that is a different trade's work and no dryer part will fix it.
Why does my dryer take three cycles to dry a load?
Airflow, almost always. A triple-decker or a brick rowhouse gives you a long horizontal duct run with several elbows — laundry in the basement, the vent terminating at grade or through two feet of masonry. Add crushed foil transition hose behind the machine, a bird guard nobody has cleared in a decade, and compacted lint at the first bend, and the airflow is a fraction of specification while the heater works perfectly.
Dishwasher
Dishwasher repair page →My dishes come out wet. Is the dryer element broken?
If it is a Bosch, Miele, Asko or most other European platforms, there is no drying element — those machines dry by condensation against a stainless tub. Cool dishes and damp plastics are designed behaviour, not a fault. It is comfortably the most common non-fault we get called out to.
Why is there a white film on my glassware?
It depends which side of the water map you are on, and this is the single most misdiagnosed complaint we see. MWRA water — Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, Newton, Quincy, Medford, Arlington and most of the inner core — is exceptionally soft, so film on glassware is usually detergent residue and an over-dosed dispenser rather than scale. Much of Essex County draws from its own reservoirs or private wells, and there the hardness is real and a dishwasher's water-hardness parameter is routinely left at the installer's default. We set it correctly during the visit at no extra cost where the model supports it, which frequently resolves the complaint without a part.
The dishwasher is not cleaning the top rack.
That points at the diverter or the spray-arm supply rather than the pump. Upper-rack coverage depends on water actually being routed there, so a diverter fault or a blocked feed produces exactly this symptom while the lower rack washes normally. We check arm rotation and jet obstruction before condemning a circulation pump.
My oven runs cold even though the element looks fine.
Two common explanations before the element. The first is calibration — the appliance is cycling correctly around a set point that has drifted, which is an adjustment rather than a repair on most models. The second is the door: a hardened seal or fatigued hinge springs let heat out faster than the element can replace it, and that reads exactly like a heating fault.
How much does oven repair cost?
Sensors, elements and igniters are modest parts and the labour is straightforward, so most oven repairs land in the low-to-mid hundreds. Built-in wall ovens cost more to work on than freestanding ranges, because getting the appliance out of the cabinetry safely is a genuine part of the job — and that same fact pushes the repair-versus-replace threshold much further toward repair.
My oven smells of gas. What should I do?
Stop using it and call us. A gas odour means fuel is reaching the room rather than the burner, and no diagnostic step is worth taking before that is dealt with. We isolate the appliance at the shut-off and leak-test every joint with a detector. If the defect is in the supply rather than the appliance we will tell you and leave it isolated rather than reconnected.
A machine that is not on this list — every appliance we repair has its own page with the faults we see on it most.
Machine doing something not listed?
2 questions · answered here
Buildings, licensing and insurance
Condominium boards, certificates of insurance, gas work and refrigerant handling — the questions a managed building asks before a trade is let in.
Do you work in apartments, co-ops and condos?
Yes. A very large share of Greater Boston housing is condominium, triple-decker or rental, and buildings with a management company generally require a certificate of insurance on file before a trade is admitted. Our coordinator arranges that before the technician is dispatched, so tell us the building when you call. We also carry compact 24-inch and stacked-laundry parts as standard, because Beacon Hill, the North End, the South End and Back Bay are full of kitchens that never had room for a 30-inch machine.
Are you licensed and insured?
Licensed and insured in Massachusetts, and we file certificates of insurance with building management on request. Gas work is isolated at the shut-off and leak-tested at every joint before an appliance returns to service, and sealed-system refrigeration work is carried out under EPA refrigerant-handling rules. Where an exterior vent or through-wall penetration falls inside a local historic district, we will tell you before touching it rather than after.
Building management asking for paperwork?
6 questions · answered in context
Scheduling, price and warranty
Speed, the fixed-price model, overnight availability and what the warranty actually covers.
- How quickly can you get here?Residential
- How does your pricing work?Cost
- Are you really open 24/7, and does it cost more at night?Cost
- What warranty do you provide?Cost
- Will you tell me if the repair is not worth doing?Cost
- What should I have ready when I call?Cost
90-day parts, 30-day labour warranty on every repair. What happens after you get in touch sets out the sequence from the first call to the warranted repair.
Ready to put it on the schedule?
5 questions · answered in context
In your home
Access, floor protection, certificates of insurance and second appliances on the same visit.
- Do I have to be home for the visit?Residential
- Will you protect my floors and cabinets?Residential
- My building requires a certificate of insurance.Residential
- Can you look at more than one appliance while you are here?Residential
- Do you work on appliances you did not install?Residential
Awkward stairs or a tight landing?
5 questions · answered in context
In a commercial kitchen
Priority, scheduling around service, the brands we hold parts for and the paperwork you can file.
- How quickly can you reach a commercial kitchen?Commercial
- Can you work around our service hours?Commercial
- Which commercial brands do you service?Commercial
- Why does the same fault keep coming back?Commercial
- Do you provide documentation for our records?Commercial
Kitchen equipment down before service?
Still stuck
Ask us the awkward one
The questions worth asking are usually the ones a list like this cannot anticipate — an appliance nobody makes parts for any more, a landing too tight to turn a machine on. Those are worth a two-minute call.