Appliance Repair in North Philadelphia

North Philadelphia covers a lot of ground, from Brewerytown and Strawberry Mansion near the park to the blocks around Temple and on up through Fairhill, Hunting Park and Nicetown. The housing changes from one block to the next, but most of it is brick rowhouse stock built generations ago, with Victorian-era homes on some streets and a growing scatter of new construction mixed in.

That age shows up behind the appliances. Shutoff valves nobody has turned in decades, gas lines on old flexible connectors, ungrounded two-prong outlets and dryer cords that don't match the receptacle on the wall are routine findings across 19121, 19122, 19132, 19133 and 19140. Our technician looks at the hookup as well as the machine, because a new part on a bad connection will not last.

Houses near campus are often split among several tenants, and the appliances work harder than they were built to. A washer running load after load every weekend, a refrigerator door opened dozens of times a day and a dishwasher packed full of mismatched dishes all wear out faster. Overloaded front-loaders throw unbalanced-load errors and tear their door boots; top-loaders snap suspension rods and drive couplers.

For landlords and property managers, the process stays the same no matter who opens the door: we diagnose, write up an estimate, and replace nothing until the owner approves it. When you book, tell us who authorizes the work and which tenant will be home to let the technician in.

Brewerytown and the streets around campus have seen a wave of new-construction rowhomes, and they put appliances in different places than their neighbors. Laundry moves to a second-floor closet, often a stacked pair, and the kitchen may be an open plan with a slim dishwasher and a counter-depth refrigerator. A drip from a fill hose or a washer door seal in that closet shows up as a stain on the living room ceiling.

Ask whether the washer sits in a drain pan and whether the closet has a floor drain or leak sensor. If the pan is missing, adding one is worth it. Stacked dryers in these closets also tend to have long vent runs to the roof or a side wall, and lint buildup there is behind many slow-drying complaints.

In most older rowhouses here, the washer and dryer sit in the basement beside a laundry tub or floor drain. Much of the city runs on a combined sewer, and after a hard summer cloudburst that drain can back up. A machine that sat in standing water may have a wet motor, a corroded pump or a soaked control board, so leave it unplugged until it has dried out and been checked.

Damp basements also clog dryer vents faster, because lint clings to moist duct walls. If your vent leaves through a basement window, go outside and make sure the hood flap swings open freely and isn't packed with lint or buried in a window well.

Plenty of owners in Nicetown, Hunting Park and Strawberry Mansion have lived in the same house for a generation or more, and the gas range may be nearly as old as the kitchen cabinets. On many gas ovens, a weakening glow-bar igniter is the reason the oven takes minutes to light or never reaches temperature. The technician measures the igniter's current draw instead of guessing, and never adjusts the gas valve as a shortcut.

A refrigerator pushed tight against the rear wall of a narrow kitchen often has condenser coils matted with dust and pet hair. The tell is a fridge that runs nonstop and feels warm along the sides while the freezer still seems fine. Cleaning the coils and testing the condenser fan comes before any talk of a compressor. If you ever smell gas, leave the house without flipping switches and call PGW or 911 from outside.