Straight answers

A flat $80 diagnostic fee covers the trip and a full diagnosis, and it is credited toward the repair when you approve the work. You get the price in writing before anything is opened up. We do not quote repairs over the phone, because a guess is worth nothing to either of us.

Yes. The technician diagnoses the fault, then gives you a written estimate covering parts and labor. Nothing proceeds until you approve it. If the repair turns out not to be worth doing, we will tell you that plainly and you pay only the diagnostic fee.

We accept cash, check, and all major credit cards including Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. Payment is due when the repair is complete, not up front.

Weigh the written repair estimate against what replacing the appliance costs installed — not against a sticker price. Under roughly half of that number, repairing is usually the better buy. Above it, the age of the unit and whether parts are still supplied decide it. Our repair-or-replace page runs the arithmetic.

The rule of thumb says repair when the quote comes to less than half the cost of replacing the machine. It was written for freestanding appliances. A built-in is cabinetry, so replacing one means panels, trim and installation as well, and that moves the threshold a long way toward repairing.

We do not bill by the hour. A flat $80 diagnostic covers the visit and the diagnosis, and the repair is then quoted as one written figure for parts and labor together. An hourly rate rewards a slow technician and leaves you unable to check the total before agreeing to it.

Pulling the unit forward on its rails where it has to come out, reading the error codes logged by the control board, testing the circuit the fault points at, and naming the component that failed. You leave with a written price. The $80 comes off the total when you approve the work.

The sealed system — compressor, evaporator, condenser and drier. That work runs $860–$2,560 on our table, against $250–$610 for a fan motor and $230–$600 for a door gasket. It is also the only refrigeration repair federal law requires EPA Section 608 certification for, which our technicians hold.

Compressor and sealed-system work runs $860–$2,560 completed, parts and labor together. Where a job lands inside that depends on the platform and on how much of the system has to be replaced alongside the compressor. The firm figure is written down after the diagnosis, never quoted over the phone.

On a built-in, usually. The cabinet, doors, liner, controls and — where the unit runs dual refrigeration — an entire second sealed system are all untouched, and replacing the appliance carries cabinetry work on top of the purchase. On a freestanding refrigerator the same repair is a much harder argument.

The part, mostly. A serial-specific control board at $440–$1,080 is a different job from a door gasket at $230–$600. After the part: whether the unit has to come out of its cabinet, whether a sealed system is opened, and whether the component ships against your serial number.

Age is a fact about the appliance, not a diagnosis. What decides it is the named fault, whether the part is still supplied against your serial number, and the installed cost of replacing it. Well-maintained built-in refrigeration is commonly still working at twenty years; a cabinet rusted through is not.

Ninety days on our labor and a full year on the parts we install. If the same fault returns inside that window, we come back and there is no second diagnostic fee.

No. Under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act a manufacturer cannot void your warranty simply because an independent company did the work. That said, if your appliance is still inside its full factory warranty, the manufacturer's own certified network is the right call — they will do it at no cost to you, and we will tell you so.

We are an independent repair company, not a home warranty company, and we are not on any plan's contractor panel. If you hold a home warranty or an extended service plan, read it before you call anyone - most require their own network, or written authorisation before work starts, and an invoice from us is unlikely to be reimbursed without that. Plenty of people find their plan caps out well below what a built-in repair costs, and then the $80 diagnostic and a written estimate is the faster route.

Roughly forty miles by road from our base in Fruit Cove. That covers St. Johns County, all of Duval, and the populated parts of Clay County, including Ponte Vedra Beach, Nocatee, St. Augustine, the Beaches, Orange Park and Fleming Island.

The $80 diagnostic fee is the same everywhere inside our service area. There is no separate trip charge for Ponte Vedra, St. Augustine or the Beaches. Outside the forty-mile radius we will tell you honestly that we are not the right company for the job.