Top 4 Signs Your Appliance Needs Repair

It’s difficult to think what our lives would be like without home appliances. We wouldn’t have as much free time to spend with our families or work on hobbies or things we truly enjoy. If you think you’re busy now, imagine if you didn’t have a dishwasher to clean your pots and pans, a refrigerator to store you food for the week or even month, or even a washing machine to keep clothes clean.

That’s why, should any of these appliances break down, it can be a big inconvenience for homeowners. It can disrupt routines even the most tightly-run homes. Instead of spending more time helping kids with homework or reading them bedtime stories, you’d have to use up your precious hours washing dishes or bringing clothes to the Laundromat (or worse, washing things by hand). Indeed, we’d be lost without our appliances.

Of course, you can’t help it if the refrigerator or stove decides to stop working all of a sudden. After all, appliances don’t know when it’s a convenient time to kick the bucket. However, as someone who owns appliances, you can manage them. Despite the fact that appliances have different brands and functions, they more or less work in the same way. There are many signs that show you when your appliances are ready to break down. If you can spot these signs, you can call an appliance repair company who fix them right away. Although there are numerous signs, here are the top 4 signs you appliance needs repair.

1) Your Electricity Bills Are Skyrocketing

Most homeowners can predict how much they will pay for electricity every month, and even every season. However, if you’ve been checking your bills lately and you’ve seen a creep, or a straight up increase, then it might be your appliances. Many appliances, like refrigerators, suck up more power when they’re having problems. In order to compensate, appliances may increase power consumption. So, take a look at your electricity bills – have there been any small, but growing increases? Check your appliances or call your appliance repair technician and ask their advice.

2) Your Appliance is Taking Longer to do Its Job

If you’ve had your appliances for a few months, you can probably predict how long everyday tasks take. However, if your washing machine seems to be taking a long time to clean your clothes or perhaps your ice maker has been working overnight and still hasn’t produced ice, then there’s probably an underlying problem.

3) Your Appliance is Making Strange Noises

Some appliances naturally make noise; after all, many of them have moving parts. However, if the noises they are making aren’t the usual ones, then that might be a problem. For example, if your refrigerator is running for too long or your washing machine makes loud, banging sounds, then you should probably investigate. At best, it may be a matter of cleaning and maintenance. In the case of the fridge, you should check the coils and clean them out regularly. However, if you still can’t figure out the source of the noise, then it’s time to call a pro.

4) Your Appliance Isn’t Working as Well

Some homeowners tend to ignore small problems as long as their appliances are still working. For example, maybe your clothes don’t come out as warm or dry from the dryer as they used to. Or maybe the garbage disposal isn’t grinding up larger pieces of debris. The thing is, small problems like this can lead to bigger ones. If you ignore them, then by the time you call an appliance repair technician, what would have been a routine maintenance check or small repair may turn into a bigger problem. You might have to actually pay more for repair, or worse, have to totally replace your machine.

What To Do When You Spot These Signs

Once you see any of these signs or perhaps other things that are out of the ordinary, you may be able to perform some routine maintenance tasks to abate any major problems:

Dryers

Make sure you clean out your dryer lint trap regularly. You actually can’t over clean the lint trap, so try to do it after every load, or as often as you can remember.

Refrigerators

Refrigerator coils then to gather dust, which can affect the way your appliance runs. Most of the time, however, it’s just a matter of taking a broom or feather duster and cleaning out dirt from behind or under the fridge (depending on where the coils are located). If your fridge has a water dispenser, don’t forget to change the filter regularly.

Stove and Oven

Oil and dirt tend to get trapped in the downdraft vent filters and range hoods. Metal mesh filters should be washed by hand – just take them out and clean them in soapy water. Paper and charcoal filters, on the other hand, should be replaced and never reused.

The great thing about ovens is that most of them have self-cleaning modes. But, don’t forget to clean up any immediate messes so they don’t build up and crust inside the oven.

Dishwasher

Aside from cleaning debris left inside the fridge, check the racks for damage or misalignment. If you find rust, then you should replace the racks or use a repair kit to seal them.

Washing Machine

Rubber hoses tend to degrade the fastest on washing machines, so make sure you routinely check the hoses for cracks or breaks. These hoses should also be replaced every five years.

When to Call a Professional

Of course, there are many times when you simply can’t fix or prevent a problem by yourself. Unless you’re a professional yourself, you should definitely call a pro to fix your appliance. An appliance repair professional can help diagnose your problem and fix it. They will come to your home and repair your broken appliances. That way, you can get back to your home routine and enjoy the conveniences of modern appliances. Finding a good technician doesn’t have to be hard – in fact, we’ve discussed this on a previous blog post. Don’t wait until the problem gets worse. Call a reliable repair company as soon as you experience any problems.