Customer Reviews

Troubleshooting and Repairing Major Appliances, 2nd Ed.

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Having had used the old Time-Life books or Franklynn Peterson's book to repair most of my appliances for the past 25 years I was highly unimpressed with this book. Unfortunately, someone "borrowed" my oldest Time Life major appliance book that covered front load washers and they didn't cover them at all for 10 yrs so when my frontloader acted up I needed a newer book.

So when I saw the title and the fact it was a 2007 book I figured (wrongly) that it would cover current appliances and might be a something I could use. There might be some areas with useful stuff in there but but on first job that came up it failed.

The first illustration of a washer is a front loader, but, all maintenance and repair information and all diagrams are for older agitatator models when it is covered at all. Also the list of symptoms has nothing to do with the repair contents or at least not on logical basis.

For example when you go to the washer section and you look up Symptom "water will not drain" it gives possible causes but does not reference what page you would find that information on, there is no diagram of what the inside of the washer looks like, no illustration of what the pump looks like. Where it gives info. like check for air lock in the pump it never covers instructions on how to check for air lock,in the case of check to the sure that the motor is not runing in the agitation direction there are no instructions on how to check that or what to do if it is.

So far for me it started with a total failure first time out of the mailer. Doubt I will ever pick it up again to even bother checking it on other items.

By the way I have rebuilt 1 electric stove, rebuilt two diswashers, two washers and one dryer in the past so none of this is new to me is just been 8 yrs since I had to repair a washer and this one is 20 yrs younger with newer controls so I thought an updated book would help.

I have a 13 month old dishwasher that cost me $650. It started making a loud noise while in use. I called the company's repair center and they gave me a rough estimate of about $400-500 to repair. According to Consumer Reports, I should have trashed the washer and bought a new one! I had to search high and low to find any books on appliance repair. Evidently, this knowledge is a state secret! I guess our disposable society doesn't want to fix anything. I did a lot of searching on the web and did find some general info on dishwasher repair, but they didn't offer any concrete details. This book saved the day. I read the repair chapter on dishwashers, grab my tools and removed the dishwasher, diagnosed the problem (bad motor--after ruling out other issues), went to the company's web site, located the motor and ordered it for $225. The motor arrived, I removed the old motor and popped the new one in, reconnected the electricity and water supplies, restored the power, ran a cycle and eureka, IT WORKED! The cost of the book, some of my time and I was able to saved my self hundreds of dollars and not be a prisoner of some repairperson. The book offers chapters on using the tools, multimeter, etc. you will need to diagnose the problem. They are clearly written and not overburdened with "technobabble". The chapters on each appliance help you troubleshoot and rule out other possiblities. To be fair, I do have a strong tool background, so I have the equipment needed. If you don't have a multimeter, etc., you would be better off calling a repair tech, but if you do have to tools for the job, grab this book and fix the problem yourself. The sense of satisfaction and competence you feel by doing something for yourself and saving your appliance from the landfill make the effort worthwhile!

I have a background in electricity, Air-conditioning and apartment maintenance. My strengths are in carpentry, electricity and Heat and air-conditioning. I am a HVAC technician and I found the section on heating, air and refrigeration to be a very good overview of these appliances. I wish I had this book back when I was doing apartment maintenance. It would have been a big help. I bought this book to learn more about appliances and how to repair them. I will eventually use this information to build my personal business. It's a good buy.

As a former Appliance/HVACR Technician,who is presently teaching and has been for over twenty years I would not recommend this book.
Way too many mistakes and dangerous illustrations.

I have read many technical books for maintenance issues. This book is easy to read and straight to the point. Great book to read. This book is so easy - even stupid people could understand.

We are no non for profit housing homelss and transitional veterans. This book will be use to teach the veterans appliance repair. Thank you for the speedy delivery!

Sadly there isn't any particular one source of appliance repair information that could be satisfactory for most of my questions anywhere i looked. So I bought this book in my quest for information. Overall, I would like to thank the author for this contribution. Overall the book adds significant amount of knowledge of appliance repair to a beginner or perhaps a good reference to someone who had been in the field of appliance for some time. The only two downsides that I have encountered were, #1 - The drawn out examples of appliance in the book do not even have shades or shadows, hence make these drawings look rather incomplete and unreal, difficult to connect with real image of an appliance. To me visual way of learning is an essential part of learning while reading text, especially when the subject is a physical object such as an appliance item with all of it's wires and panels. And #2- every now and then instructions weren't exactly a 100% clear for me, but perhaps its just me. Honestly, after reading the book I got intimidated by appliances rather than gained more confidence, but you don't have to take my word for it, read it for yourself.

I would rate drawings - 1 out of 5
Written part 3.5 out of 5

Recommend : Author Douglas Emley Much better and simpler written and drawn out explanations )