Appliance Repair Tips and Guides from Fort Collins

Spring is a good time to do a quick walk-through of your appliances. Not because something is broken, but because a little attention now prevents a breakdown later when you actually need things working. Temperatures are climbing in Fort Collins, laundry piles up with spring cleaning, and appliances that coasted through winter are about to work harder. Here's what to check.

You notice a puddle on the kitchen floor in front of the fridge. Or you open it up and find water pooling at the bottom of the fresh food section. A refrigerator leaking water is one of the most common calls I get here in Fort Collins. The good news is that several of the causes are things you can check and fix yourself. Some of them are not.

If you're looking for appliance repair in Fort Collins, you should know what you're getting when you call RMAS.

If you've been Googling "oven not heating" or wondering whether your stove is worth fixing, you're in the right place. Ovens and stoves are reliable appliances, but they do fail, and the symptoms usually show up gradually before things stop working entirely. Here are six signs I see regularly in Fort Collins homes that tell me something needs attention.

Your refrigerator runs around the clock, every day of the year. Most people don't think about it until something goes wrong. By the time you notice a problem, food may already be spoiling. Here are five signs your refrigerator is telling you it needs attention.

People ask me this all the time, usually when something just broke. How long do appliances last? When should I start budgeting for a replacement? Is this machine even worth fixing at this point?

A washing machine that shakes the whole room is hard to ignore. It's loud, it's alarming, and it can walk itself right off the laundry room floor if the problem gets bad enough. The good news is that shaking and vibrating are common complaints, and a lot of the time the fix is simple.

Summer in Northern Colorado is no joke. Fort Collins can push into the mid-to-upper 90s during July and August, and that heat doesn't just affect your comfort. It changes how hard every appliance in your house has to work. A refrigerator that ran fine all winter will start straining when the ambient temperature in your kitchen climbs above 80 degrees. A dryer vent that was passable in spring becomes a fire hazard when heat accumulates in a laundry room. Here's what to check before summer hits full force.

Your freezer is supposed to hold 0°F and keep everything rock solid. When ice cream turns soft, meat starts to thaw, or you notice the freezer feels cool instead of cold, something has gone wrong. This is one of the more common service calls I get here in Fort Collins, and it covers a wide range of causes. Some are simple fixes you can handle in five minutes. Others require a technician.

Dryer vent cleaning doesn't cross most people's minds until something goes wrong. That's a problem, because a clogged dryer vent is one of the leading causes of house fires in the United States. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, dryers cause roughly 2,900 home fires each year, and the leading factor is failure to clean them.

An ice maker that stops producing ice is one of the most common calls I get. It is also one of the most satisfying problems to diagnose because the cause is almost always one of the same six things. Half of them you can check and fix yourself in under ten minutes. The other half require a part or a technician, but at least you will know what you are dealing with.

Fall is the right time to get your appliances ready for what's ahead. You've got heavy cooking season starting in October and running straight through the holidays. You've got blankets and winter coats going through the washer and dryer. You've got temperatures in Fort Collins that can drop below freezing overnight before Thanksgiving. If something is going to fail under that kind of demand, now is when you want to find it. Not the night before you're cooking for twelve people.

This is the question I get asked more than any other. Someone's appliance breaks down, and before I even diagnose it they're already wondering whether it's worth fixing. It's a fair question and there's no single right answer. But there are some guidelines that help.

Your garbage disposal stopped working and now you've got a sink full of food scraps with nowhere to go. Before you call anyone or start pricing replacements, work through these checks. Most disposal problems have a straightforward cause, and a good number of them you can fix in under ten minutes.

You open the dishwasher after a cycle and there's an inch of grimy water sitting at the bottom. It's a frustrating problem, and it's also one of the most common calls I get. The good news is that a dishwasher that won't drain is often something you can fix yourself without calling anyone.

You set the temperature, wait for the preheat beep, and the oven never actually gets hot. Or it heats, but unevenly, with one side of the pan burning while the other stays pale. Wall ovens have a handful of components that commonly fail, and most of them point to specific symptoms that make diagnosis pretty straightforward.

Colorado winters hit differently than winters in most places. It's not just cold. It's the combination of hard freezes, dry air, temperature swings that can span 50 degrees in a single day, and storms that knock out power without much warning. Fort Collins can be 60 degrees in November and buried in snow by the next week. That kind of weather creates specific problems for appliances that people in milder climates don't have to think about. Here's what to check before winter gets serious.