On the job · West Ashley & Charleston
The rest of the lineup.
Same $99 diagnostic, same written quote, same written warranty on every machine we fix in West Ashley & Charleston.
Milk that is cool instead of cold, frost climbing the back wall of the freezer, a compressor that clicks, hums and gives up. Wappoo repairs refrigerators and freezers across West Ashley and the Charleston area within a 35-minute drive. A warm refrigerator gets a same-day window. The technician meters the sealed system, the fans and the board, writes one price and usually fixes it that visit.
Same $99 diagnostic, same written quote, same written warranty on every machine we fix in West Ashley & Charleston.
From June through September the phones at the shop are mostly refrigerators. A garage refrigerator in Summerville or a second freezer in a Hanahan carport is running in 95-degree air, and the condenser fan and compressor work at their limit until one of them quits. Then hurricane season lays power flickers on top of that, and the inverter boards in newer Samsung and LG units are the first casualties. A warm refrigerator anywhere in the 35-minute radius, from Ravenel to Sullivan’s Island, gets the earliest window we have, usually the same day. The van carries the fans, defrost parts, relays and thermistors that solve most of these calls in one stop.
Housing shapes the failures too. In the 1960s ranches of West Ashley, James Island and Park Circle the refrigerator sits in a tight alcove with no airflow behind it, and the condenser coil packs with dust and pet hair until the unit runs constantly. Downtown, the built-in Sub-Zero and Thermador units in Harleston Village and South of Broad kitchens have their own evaporator fans and door heaters that fail quietly. And on Kiawah and Seabrook, panel-front refrigerators in villas that sit empty for weeks ice up when the doors are left ajar. Each one is a different diagnosis, which is why we meter first.
A classic defrost failure. The evaporator coil is a block of ice, the fan cannot move air up to the fresh-food side, and the freezer stays cold while the top warms. We check the defrost heater, thermostat and control, thaw the coil, and replace what failed. Sometimes it is just the evaporator fan motor.
The start relay or capacitor is not getting the compressor going, or the compressor itself has an open winding. We test the relay, read the windings, and check the inverter board on newer units. If the compressor is done we say so, and give you a written number to weigh against replacing the refrigerator.
A door gasket that no longer seals, a door left ajar, or a defrost cycle that has stopped running. Humidity here makes every air leak into a frost problem within days. We check the gasket with a light, look for a sagging door hinge, and test the defrost circuit before touching anything else.
A frozen or clogged defrost drain, a cracked water line to the dispenser, or an inlet valve leaking behind the unit. We pull the refrigerator, find the source with the water on, and clear or replace what is leaking. Wood floors in older Charleston houses do not forgive a slow drip, so we also check the drain pan.
Usually a condenser coil packed with dust or a condenser fan that has stopped spinning, so the refrigerant never sheds its heat. In a garage in July it may just be the ambient temperature. We clean the coil, test the fan, and measure the temperatures at both coils to see whether the sealed system is doing its job.
Surges take out control boards and inverter compressors. We check for line voltage at the outlet, then the board’s inputs and outputs, and the compressor’s response to a command. A board is a repair; a failed inverter compressor on a mid-range unit may not be worth it, and we will tell you plainly.
The technician takes readings before forming an opinion: fresh-food and freezer temperatures, the evaporator and condenser coil temperatures, the compressor’s current draw, and the voltage at the outlet. Then the defrost circuit, the evaporator and condenser fans, the door switches and the thermistors are each metered against the manufacturer’s spec sheet. That sequence separates a fan motor from a sealed-system failure in about twenty minutes, and it is the reason we do not guess from “it’s warm.” Then one repair number goes on paper. The $99 diagnostic is inside that number. Approve it and the fix starts right away; decline and the $99 is your whole bill.
We repair Whirlpool, GE, Samsung, LG, Frigidaire, KitchenAid, Bosch, Kenmore and Electrolux refrigerators, and the built-in lines that Charleston kitchens favor: Sub-Zero, Thermador, Viking, JennAir and Miele, including panel-front units in Kiawah and Seabrook villas and Daniel Island condos. Vacation-rental owners on Folly Beach and downtown get turnovers scheduled between guests. We are open six days a week, Monday to Saturday, and a warm refrigerator called in before noon usually sees a technician that afternoon anywhere within 35 minutes of West Ashley. Book online and up to $20 comes off the repair; the diagnostic stays $99.
Call (843) 969-4664 with the symptom, or book online and up to $20 comes off the repair. West Ashley & Charleston, six days a week.
