Appliance Repair in Mayfair, Tacony & Oxford Circle

Much of Mayfair, Oxford Circle, Tacony, Wissinoming and Holmesburg was built out with post-war brick rowhouses, the porch-front and airlite styles, with a rear driveway shared along the block and a garage tucked under the house. That layout covers big stretches of 19135, 19136 and 19149.

It is a friendly layout for appliance work. The basement garage usually opens close to the laundry area, which makes moving a washer or dryer easier than in the older rowhouses closer to Center City. Getting a refrigerator to a first-floor kitchen still means the front steps or the interior stair, so tell us which route works best.

Many families have lived in these houses for decades, and the appliances show the steady use of a busy household: washers that have run thousands of loads, ranges that have cooked countless holiday dinners and refrigerators that have been moved from the kitchen to the garage when a new one arrived.

The rear driveway is shared by every house on the row, so the technician needs a spot that won't trap a neighbor's car. If your garage or a space in front of it can be cleared for the visit, say so when you book. Otherwise the technician parks out front and comes through the house.

If a heavy item has to leave through the garage, clear a path from the laundry area to the garage door ahead of time. Boxes, bikes and holiday decorations are usually the only obstacles.

The tuck-under garage is a favorite spot for a second refrigerator or freezer, and winter is when it gets into trouble. Many refrigerators are designed to run in rooms above roughly 50 to 55 degrees. Below that, the compressor rarely cycles, food in the freezer section softens, and the owner assumes the unit is failing.

Garage-ready models are built for those swings. For a standard unit, keeping the garage door sealed and the refrigerator against an interior wall helps, and summer brings the opposite problem: a hot garage keeps it running nonstop, so clean the coils before the first heat wave.

A chest freezer in the same garage is usually more forgiving of cold, but it still needs a good lid seal. Frost building up quickly around the lid means warm, humid air is getting in.

In these houses, the laundry usually sits in a corner of the basement next to the garage, with a laundry tub, a gas line for the dryer and a vent through the garage or rear wall. The setup works, but dryer vents that run through a garage collect lint quickly and can be crushed by stored items.

A dryer that runs hot or takes two cycles often needs nothing more than a cleaned and straightened vent. Gas dryers in these spaces also need clear air around them, so keep paint cans, boxes and anything flammable away from the machine.

A lot of these basements were finished as family rooms, with the laundry tucked behind paneling or a closet door. A small leak from a fill hose, a drain pump or a cracked tub can soak carpet or drywall for weeks before anyone notices. A musty smell, a stain on the paneling or a damp patch near the laundry closet is the early warning.

Pull the washer out once a year and look at the hoses, valves and floor beneath it. A metal drain pan with a leak alarm is an easy addition when the machine sits next to finished space.

After heavy rain, the floor drain can also back up from the combined sewer. If water has reached the washer, dryer or a basement freezer, unplug them and have them inspected before running them again.