Posted by You can learn a lot and save money doing your own home appliance repairs. I recently had a refrigerator that stopped working and a dryer that had a small gas leak. Although both are over 20 years old, I need to keep them running because replacements cost over $2000. A typical home appliance will last for 12 years before it needs to be replaced. You can keep them running longer with just a little regular maintenance. My refrigerator was making a buzzing noise every 3 minutes and I noticed that the freezer wasn’t as cold as it should be. This happened when I first moved into the home 12 years ago. I replaced the starter relay and that fixed the problem. I also cleaned the cooling coils at the same time. I normally vacuum the air vent below the front door whenever I clean the kitchen floor. This time I removed the air vent grill and vacuumed the coils as best I could. Within an hour the refrigerator started working again. This may be all that was needed the first time it happened. A new relay costs about $35, so I was glad I didn’t need one. In the future, I will be sure to remove the grill and vacuum the coils on a regular basis.
Repair #2 was the gas line at the back of the clothes dryer. Periodically, when I was near the dryer, I could smell gas near the back. I knew it was a very small leak because it wasn’t present all the time. In this case, I decided to buy a handheld gas leak detector from Amazon for $22.99. It would be useful in finding the source of the leak and testing fittings after the repair. The tester triggered at the point where the line attached to the dryer. The 36″ flexible gas line had a sharp 90-degree bend at that location, so I decided to replace the line. I first checked Lowes to look for one they had on sale, but all they had were the more expensive ones. I ended up ordering one from Amazon for $19.92. I also wanted to install a 90-degree elbow at the wall so that the line didn’t have to lay under the dryer. The brass elbow was $8.99, plus a tube of thread sealant for $4.52.
The biggest worry with this repair was that the shutoff valve was by the furnace, and I was concerned that some gas would leak out after I disconnected the flex line from the wall. I did shut the gas off to the dryer several days in advance and any gas that was in the line was gone by the time I disconnected the flex line. The next problem was getting the correct size adapters to connect the line. The new flex line had 1/2 FLR treads, but the adapters that came with the line had 1/2 NPT threads. My connection points needed 1/2 FLR treads. The elbow that I ordered had 1/2 NPT threads, so I had to go to Lowes and spent another $5.38 for a 1/2 FLR to 1/2 NPT adapter. The goal is to make the connection with as few joints as possible. After everything was connected, I turned on the gas and found no leaks with my tester. Total parts cost was about $42 with tax.