On the job · Downtown Charleston
The rest of the lineup.
Same $99 diagnostic, same written quote, same written warranty on every machine we fix in Downtown Charleston.
Nobody notices an ice maker until the bin is empty and there are people in the house. Downtown Charleston property managers call us on a Thursday because the guests arrive Friday, and the Sub-Zero in the South of Broad rental has quit making ice. We work the module inside the refrigerator, the fill valve, the line and the control that runs it, and write one number.
Same $99 diagnostic, same written quote, same written warranty on every machine we fix in Downtown Charleston.
A good share of the refrigerators on the peninsula are not in anyone’s home. They are in short-term rentals along the streets off King Street, in Cannonborough-Elliotborough and Radcliffeborough, in carriage houses South of Broad, managed from an office and checked between guests by a cleaner. The cleaner notices the ice bin is empty and texts the manager. The manager texts us. We book the window between check-out and check-in, fifteen minutes from the shop, and repair the ice maker in the refrigerator it lives in. We only work on the ice makers built into refrigerators, not standalone machines, and that is the unit in nearly every rental kitchen downtown.
Downtown ice makers stop for a short list of reasons. Charleston Water System water is moderately soft, so scale on the fill valve is rare here; what we see instead is a frozen fill tube, a fill valve that has weakened and drips just enough to freeze, an ejector motor that has stalled, or a module that lost its signal from the main board after a power blink. Salt air near the harbor corrodes the valve solenoid contacts in ground-floor kitchens in Harleston Village. In a Hampton Park French-door unit, a door ice maker had stopped because the door gasket had shrunk and warm air was defrosting the mold between cycles. Nothing in the ice maker was broken.
First we confirm the freezer is at temperature, because a warm freezer makes no ice and the ice maker is not the problem. Then the arm or the sensor, the module, the fill valve and the water supply. We can force a cycle on most units and watch what fails. The van carries modules and valves for the common brands.
Not enough water reaching the mold. A weak fill valve, a partially frozen fill tube, a kinked line behind the refrigerator or a filter overdue for a change. We time the fill and measure the water volume. In a downtown kitchen with a built-in the line often runs a long way and pinches where the unit was pushed back.
A valve that drips after it closes lets water freeze in the tube a little more each cycle. Thawing the tube fixes it for a week; replacing the valve fixes it. We thaw, then test the valve for seepage. If the freezer runs too cold or the door is not sealing, we correct that too, or the tube freezes again.
The filter is overdue, food is open in the freezer, or the ice has sat in the bin for a month in a rental that was empty. We change or check the filter, dump and clean the bin and mold and run fresh cycles. Rental managers get a filter schedule so this does not repeat.
The fill tube has shifted so water misses the mold, the valve is overfilling, or the ice maker is stuck mid-cycle with water on the way. We reset the tube, meter the valve and check the module timing. On built-ins the leak may also be a drain issue in the freezer section, so we look there as well.
Hurricane-season blinks reset control boards and sometimes leave the ice maker off or the module in a fault. We check the board output to the ice maker, the module itself and the valve. If the board took the surge, that is a refrigerator repair, and we tell you before writing the number.
An ice maker is a small machine with four jobs: fill, freeze, eject, repeat. We test each. The fill is timed and the water metered against what the mold should hold, which catches weak valves and pinched lines. The freeze is a thermometer in the freezer compartment or, on French-door units, in the ice room in the door. The eject is a forced harvest with the meter on the motor or the module. Then the control: the signal from the refrigerator’s board that tells the module to run. Sub-Zero built-ins in South of Broad and Harleston Village kitchens keep their ice maker in the freezer drawer and are serviced from the front without disturbing the cabinet.
We repair the ice makers inside Sub-Zero, Thermador, Viking, Miele and JennAir built-ins and inside Whirlpool, GE, Samsung, LG, Frigidaire, KitchenAid, Bosch and Kenmore refrigerators. Standalone ice machines and undercounter units are not something we take on. For short-term rentals across the peninsula and the managers who run them, we book the turnover window, text photos and the written number for approval, and leave the bin clean for the next check-in. The price structure is fixed: the $99 diagnostic is inside the number you approve, and if you decline, $99 is the entire bill. Book online and up to $20 comes off the repair.
Call (843) 969-4664 with the symptom, or book online and up to $20 comes off the repair. Downtown Charleston, six days a week.
