An empty ice bin in the middle of August, cubes that come out hollow and cloudy, a fill tube frozen into a plug.
Monday–Friday 7:30–5:30 · Saturday 8–1 · closed Sunday
Every machine in North Nampa gets the same treatment: $99 for the meter, a single figure on paper, the warranty term on the invoice.
Refrigerator & Freezer Repair$99 with a meter · rides inside the repair
Washing Machine Repair$99 with a meter · rides inside the repair
Clothes Dryer Repair$99 with a meter · rides inside the repair
Dishwasher Repair$99 with a meter · rides inside the repair
Range, Oven & Cooktop Repair$99 with a meter · rides inside the repairThe French-door refrigerators in the subdivisions off Cherry Ln, Ustick Rd and Can-Ada Rd each arrived with an ice maker, door-mounted or in the freezer, and of everything in that refrigerator the maker is what gives out first. Nampa city water is hard, and although the softener in the garage takes most of it out, let the salt run out and scale heads straight for a fill valve no bigger than a thumb. The truck comes over the Franklin or Garrity exit from Davis Ave and works the streets behind the Idaho Center and around St. Luke’s and Saint Alphonsus, where a full ice bin in July is not a small thing.
The failures come in a handful of shapes. Scale narrows the fill valve until too little water gets through; the result is undersized, hollow cubes, or a tray that stays dry. A fill tube freezes into a plug when the valve drips after it should close, and no water reaches the mold at all. The ice maker module itself, the little motor and the thermostat inside it, wears out after eight or ten years of cycling. In August a refrigerator in a hot kitchen or a garage cannot get the mold cold enough to cycle, and the bin runs empty even though nothing is broken. We meter all of it before naming anything.
The maker is not being told to run, is not getting water, or is not getting cold. We check the arm or the sensor, put the meter on the valve and on the module, and look up the fill tube for a plug. Scale on the valve, not the module, is the usual finding on the builder Whirlpool and Frigidaire units.
Water is being rationed to the mold. Scale has the fill valve down to a trickle, the filter is months overdue, or there is a kink in the line behind the refrigerator. We meter the valve, check the flow, and replace the valve if it does not pass a full fill. The filter is your job and we say when it is due.
Either the valve keeps dripping once it should be shut, or the tube heater, where the model carries one, has died. Thawing alone gives you ice for a day. We clear the plug, meter the valve, and put in a new one if it will not seal, so you are not calling again next week.
Usually the filter, or an old bin of ice that has taken on freezer smells. Now and then a hose behind the refrigerator has gone soft and is flavoring the water. Filter date, line and bin all get looked at, and often nothing needs selling. If there is, you get a written number.
The shutoff arm or the sensor is not stopping the cycle, or the freezer is warming between cycles and the ice is melting and refreezing into a block. We check the arm, the sensor and the freezer temperature. A door gasket letting warm air in fuses ice as surely as a bad sensor.
A refrigerator in a hot garage off Garrity Blvd, or a kitchen unit with a dusty condenser coil, cannot pull the freezer low enough to cycle the maker. Nothing in the ice maker is broken. The coil gets cleaned, the condenser fan and door seals get checked, and the freezer goes back to where the mold will freeze.
An ice maker is diagnosed from the freezer outward. First comes a thermometer in the freezer, since a mold that never drops below the cycling point produces nothing however many parts go in. Next the fill tube gets inspected for a plug, and the fill valve is metered and its flow measured into a cup for a timed fill. The module is put through a forced harvest so the motor, the thermostat and the shutoff can be watched. On door-mounted makers the duct and the door gasket are checked for warm air. If the water side is scaled, the softener gets asked about. What failed gets a plain name; the repair, a single figure on paper.
The makers we work on live inside Frigidaire, GE, Whirlpool, Maytag, LG, Samsung, KitchenAid, Kenmore and Bosch refrigerators; standalone ice machines are not our trade. Fill valves, modules and tube heaters for the builder-package units in the Cherry Ln and Ustick Rd subdivisions are on the truck, so most of these are one-visit repairs. A rental owner near the Idaho Center says yes by text and receives the photo along with the emailed invoice and warranty. Commuters to Boise get the first stop; nurses coming off a night shift at St. Luke’s can ask for late afternoon. No ice maker repair gets a price before the diagnostic, and the price is always written; the $99 you paid at the door is buried in the number you sign off on, and walking away costs $99, nothing more.
Not necessarily. July heat keeps many garage refrigerators, and kitchen units with a dusty coil, from pulling the freezer low enough to cycle the maker, while the maker itself is fine. So the thermometer goes in first. A cold freezer with an empty bin is when the valve, the tube and the module get metered.
It narrows the fill valve until the mold gets a trickle instead of a fill. Nampa city water is hard, and the softener in a North Nampa garage is the only thing standing between it and the valve. When the salt runs out, the ice maker notices before you do. We tell you if that is what happened.
Yes; of all the ice maker work we do, that is the job we do most. The valve is metered and its flow timed; if it is scaled or the solenoid reads wrong, it is replaced from the truck. If the module is what failed, you get a written number for that instead, and nothing else is sold.
Approval of the written figure comes from the owner by text, the tenant handles the door, and the invoice, warranty on it, goes to the owner’s email. Ice makers in rentals mostly fail from an overdue filter and a scaled valve, and we note the filter date on the invoice.
A technician at the refrigerator with a meter, the freezer temperature read, the valve flow measured, the module cycled, and a plain-words name for the failed part beside one written figure. Sign off on the repair and that $99 is buried in it. Turn it down and $99 is where the visit stops.
The phone is quicker; the form lands on the same desk. Both get you a text with a window, and until a technician has had a meter on the machine the only figure anyone quotes is $99.
Open the request formRing the shop or fill in the form; dispatch answers with a window, and a text follows as the truck pulls off Davis Ave — first stops go to the Boise commuters, Saturday mornings to everyone else.
Measurements come before opinions: amps at the compressor, degrees on the shelf, ohms across the element. The failed part gets its everyday name from the technician, who then writes the repair as a single figure, $99 folded in.
The shelves on the truck hold what this valley wears out — inlet valves, defrost heaters, heating elements, igniters, drain pumps, rollers. When something must be ordered, the return trip happens on our calendar and the figure you approved stands.
The machine runs a whole cycle while you watch, panels and floor go back the way they were, and the invoice that reaches your email carries the warranty term.
$99 puts a meter on the machine. The repair goes on the ticket as one figure with that $99 inside it, the part is usually riding in the truck, and the invoice states the warranty term. Parma pays what Davis Ave pays.