UB1 · Southall
Fridge freezer repair in Southall UB1
How a fridge freezer has been installed tells you most of what is going to go wrong with it, and in Southall there are really only three installations. The commonest by a distance is a tall freestanding machine wedged into a gap at the end of a rear extension, a unit hard against one side and the extension wall against the other. The second is an extra fridge or a chest freezer standing out in the extension itself, in an outhouse or in a garage, which a large household almost always ends up needing. The third, in the more recently fitted kitchens and the interwar semis, is a machine built in behind a decor door with the hinges screwed to the appliance. More on fridge freezer repair across West London and Harrow.
The wedged-in freestanding machine has one recurring problem: nowhere to put its heat. The condenser at the back needs an air gap and a clear route upwards, and when it is pressed against a wall in a warm extension the appliance runs far longer than it was ever meant to. Long running is what produces the classic call — the fridge going warm while the freezer stays perfectly cold — because the evaporator behind the rear panel of the fridge section ices up solid, and the fan that ought to be moving cold air between the two either stalls against the ice or seizes for good. The quieter version of the same story is a blocked drain hole at the back of the fridge, which stops defrost water reaching the tray underneath and leaves it puddling under the salad drawer instead.
Appliances standing in an unheated outhouse or garage behave differently again. When the air around them turns cold in winter, the fridge section stops calling for cooling as often, the freezer drifts warmer along with it, and we get rung about a freezer fault on a machine that is working exactly as designed for a room it was never designed to stand in. We will tell you that rather than sell you a part for it.
Integrated machines are the slowest of the three to work on. The decor door and its hinge brackets come off, the appliance is unscrewed from the housing and drawn out into the room, and only then can the rear panel inside the fridge be lifted to reach the evaporator, the fan, the defrost heater and its sensor. It is worth knowing in advance that ice has to be melted properly rather than chipped at, so on some machines the honest answer is that the appliance needs emptying and switching off for a spell before any repair will hold. Tired door seals are the last common one, letting warm air in continuously and rebuilding ice within days of it being cleared. The call-out is £80 per visit with labour included on most repairs, more involved work quoted and agreed beforehand, parts quoted before fitting, and a 3-month guarantee on the part we fit.
£80
call-out charge per visit
Labour is included for most repairs. More extensive or complex jobs may require additional labour, which we always quote and agree with you before starting. Parts are charged separately and always quoted before we fit them.
We are not registered for VAT. The price we quote is the price you pay.
What Southall kitchens throw at us
In the terraces off Havelock Road the fridge freezer has generally ended up at the far end of a rear extension, squeezed between a run of units and the outside wall with barely a finger's width behind it for the condenser to breathe. Large households in these streets very often run a second freezer out in an outhouse or a garage as well, and that one behaves quite differently once the weather turns cold. If you have both, tell us when you book and we will look at the pair on the same visit.
What you can rely on
Frequently asked questions
Our fridge freezer in a Southall rear extension is jammed in with no gap behind it — does that actually matter?
It matters more than almost anything else you can control. The condenser at the back has to shed heat into moving air, and with a wall pressed against it in a warm extension the machine runs much longer than it should. That long running is what ices up the evaporator behind the fridge panel and eventually kills the fan, so we always look at the gap before we look at parts.
The fridge is warm but the freezer is still fine in our UB1 house — what is usually behind that?
On a machine with one cooling circuit shared between both compartments, it is nearly always ice. The evaporator behind the rear panel of the fridge section frosts over, and the fan that should push cold air forward from the freezer side stalls or seizes against it. We strip the panel, melt the ice off properly, then find out why it formed — a failed defrost heater or sensor, a blocked drain, or a tired door seal.
3-month guarantee on the part we replace. Any part we replace is guaranteed for 3 months from the date it is fitted. This covers the replaced part only — it is not a warranty on the whole appliance.