Appliances are designed to perform. They work hard, every year, usually without a lot of problems. They are quite easy to take for granted. The result is that when an appliance malfunctions, you don’t understand why it happens. You have no idea how it works, why it stopped working and you don’t know how to fix it.
What can you do? You can hire a professional to fix it, or you can fix it yourself and save money. Knowing some information about what you need to know to pull apart your appliances and then putting them back together is exactly what you need. It is also important to have a bit of a background of major appliances. See Quality Home Services website for details.
Most appliances operate on your home’s electrical system. They use AC current from the circuit wiring in your home. Small appliances work on 110-220 volt circuits, and the plugs on their cords have two blades. Large or major appliances, like air conditioners, ranges and dryers, usually need 220-240 volt wiring and cannot be operated on 110-120 volt circuits.
Large appliances are wired with a grounding wire. Their plugs have two blades and a prong. This kind of appliance has to be plugged into a grounded outlet, one with openings to accept both best forex brokers and grounding prong, or grounded with a special adapter plug. All appliances are labeled, either on a metal plate or on the appliance casing, with their power requirements in watts and volts, and sometimes in amps.
Small appliances are usually pretty simple machines. They might consist of a simple heating element, a set of blades, a fan, or rotating beaters attached to a drive shaft, or they might have two or three simple mechanical linkages. Repairs to these appliances are, in general, quite simple. Large appliances are more complex. One major appliance, like a washing machine, could have a motor, a timer and a pump, as well as several valves, solenoids and switches. With this kind of appliance, problems happen in either the control devices or the mechanical/power components.
Failure of a control device might affect one operation or the whole appliance. Failure of a mechanical/power device usually affects only the functions which depend on the device. When a major appliance breaks down, knowing how to diagnose the problem is as important as knowing how to fix it. Since major appliances are so complex, it usually is not obvious where the malfunction is. A lot of newer appliances include electronic diagnostics which could be interpreted from the owner’s manual.
The first step is to decide if the problem is in a control device or a mechanical device. In a dryer, for example, the control devices dictate the heat, and the mechanical devices turn the drum. Ask which system is affected. If the drum turns, but the dryer does not heat, the problem is in the control system. If the dryer heats, but the drum does not turn, the problem is mechanical. This type of analysis can be used to pinpoint the kind of failure, control system or mechanical system, in all appliances.
To find out exactly what the problem is, you need to check every part of the affected system to identify the malfunctioning part. This is not as difficult as it sounds, because appliance components work together in a logical way. Starting with the simplest possibilities, you can test the components one after another to isolate the cause of the failure.
There are important rules you need to follow to make any kind of appliance repair. Do not try to save time or money by ignoring these rules. You will not save anything at all, and you could end up with injury or destroying the appliance entirely. First, make sure that the electric and/or gas supply to the appliance is disconnected before you test the appliance to diagnose the problem or make any repairs.
If the parts of an appliance are held together with bolts, screws, plugs, and other take-apart fasteners, you can probably make any necessary repairs. If the parts are held together by rivets or welds, do not attempt to repair the appliance yourself. In most cases, broken or malfunctioning appliance parts can be replaced more quickly and inexpensively than they can be repaired by or a professional.