the Cost of Appliance Repair

Repair a free-standing ice maker in a beach house on Cape San Blas. The $481 payment broke down like this:

$230 for parts and $251 for labor.

Cape San Blas is 20 miles from it's parent city, Port St. Joe, and 30 miles from Apalachicola, the next closest town. As a result, getting service professionals to come to the Cape can be difficult, expensive, and unreliable. However, my experience getting a free-standing ice maker repaired earlier this month was a pleasant surprise. The technician was on time and even had all of the parts necessary to repair the ice maker in his truck. Not only did he repair the problem, but he identified its root cause and gave us tips on how to avoid the problem in the future. Our beach house is pet-friendly, and pet hair had clogged the air intake vent, causing the main motor to fail. I was also pleasantly surprised with his billing system. After the work was completed, he has able to connect directly with his company via a satellite dish on the top of his truck. He entered all of the data, took my credit card, processed it in real time, and printed out a receipt. The total job took about two hours. Considering how remote Cape San Blas is, and the quality of the overall service experience, I think $251 for labor was reasonable.

Before calling a repair person for an ice maker, try running several cycles of professional grade ice machine cleaner through it. While it didn't solve this particular problem, doing so has corrected a plugged intake line in the past. Also make sure you pull the face plate off once a year and clean the air intake, especially if you have pets. Had I done that, this repair would have been unnecessary.