Also on the truck · Port Orchard
The rest of the lineup
$99 to meter it, one figure on the ticket, coverage printed on the invoice — identical for every machine in Port Orchard.
Cubes shrinking week by week in a Port Orchard freezer, then hollow shells, then an empty bin: on Kitsap well water that pattern is a fill valve closing down with scale.
Weekdays 8–6 · Saturday 9–3 · closed Sunday · truck based on 4425 Harbor Country Dr NW
$99 to meter it, one figure on the ticket, coverage printed on the invoice — identical for every machine in Port Orchard.
Port Orchard splits its ice maker problems along the water line. Kitsap PUD serves the older streets above Bay Street, the marina blocks and most of the subdivisions that filled in along Sedgwick and Bethel from the 1990s onward, and on that supply an ice maker fails the ordinary way: a filter forgotten for three years, a module worn out at year twelve. Beyond the mains, along Mullenix toward Manchester and the Southworth ferry dock and on the acreage between Bethel and the Olalla line, houses draw from private wells, and the fill valve behind the refrigerator is the first casualty of that hardness. The truck reaches all of it by Hwy 16 north through Purdy and into Kitsap County.
One call from a well house off Mullenix tells the pattern. An LG French-door kept the bin full for four winters. Around Christmas the cubes went cloudy and small; by February the ice maker hummed through a harvest and dropped nothing. The owner had changed the filter twice. With a meter on the valve coil the reading was normal, yet a commanded fill produced barely a tablespoon: the port had scaled down to a pinhole, and mineral had seeded a plug in the fill tube as well. New valve, tube cleared, the softener found in bypass and set back to service, and by morning the bin was full again. In the newer Sedgwick subdivisions on PUD water the same complaint is more often a tired module, and the test order does not change.
The mold received less water than the cycle expected. On a well past the PUD line the port inside the valve has narrowed; in town it is usually a filter left far beyond its date or house pressure that has dropped. A commanded harvest lets the technician catch the fill in a measuring cup and check it against the maker's specification, then change whichever of filter, valve or pressure comes up short.
Feeler arm parked up, a supply valve turned off behind the refrigerator, a coil that stopped opening, a fill tube frozen solid or a dead module. The simple causes are ruled out at the door, then the coil is metered and the module is stepped through a cycle. On a Bethel well, a coil that reads healthy but passes nothing has scaled shut, and that is the common finding.
A valve that weeps after closing leaves a drop at the tube mouth every cycle, and drops become a plug inside a month. A tube heater that has quit does the same. The technician clears the tube, runs a fill and keeps a flashlight on the tube's mouth for the half minute afterward, and changes a weeping valve so the tube stays clear into spring.
Water is escaping the mold: a valve not seating, a fill cup with a hairline crack, or a tube nudged crooked when the bin was pushed back in. A fill is watched from inside the freezer, the coil metered for a firm seat, the cup or tube corrected, and the floor checked again an hour later before the paperwork is finished.
On a well, iron from the aquifer; on either supply, a filter long overdue or a stale batch soaking up odors. The technician checks the filter date, runs the tap for a look at the water, cleans mold and bin and dumps the old ice. Where iron is the cause, a filter ahead of the house plumbing does more than any part on the refrigerator, and you hear that plainly.
Built-ins from Sub-Zero, KitchenAid and Thermador around McCormick Woods and along Sinclair Inlet run the ice maker as its own system with a pump, a level sensor and a drain. Each gets tested in turn before a figure is written. We are not a dealer for any of them; if the maker's coverage could still be in force on your unit, that gets said before work starts.
Every ice maker visit in Port Orchard opens with the thermometer. A freezer drifting toward fifteen degrees slows the harvest long before the food notices, which makes it a refrigerator problem rather than an ice maker problem, so it is settled first. Next comes the water: the shut-off beneath the sink or behind the machine, pressure at the inlet, the filter with its date, and on a well a glance at the softener to see whether it is in service or in bypass. The fill tube gets a flashlight for signs of a plug. The coil is metered while a fill is commanded, a harvest is triggered and the shot is measured. The module's own heater, ejector motor and thermostat are the last stop. Then whatever failed gets a plain name, and a single figure that counts the $99 diagnostic goes on paper.
Most ice maker work between Bay Street and Sedgwick comes out of Whirlpool, GE, LG and Samsung refrigerators, then Frigidaire, KitchenAid, Bosch and Kenmore, with Sub-Zero and Thermador column units in McCormick Woods and on the water rounding it out. Freestanding ice machines and countertop nugget makers are not on our list. For the Navy families whose shifts start before dawn at the shipyard, the first window of the day is often the right one; for rentals near the foot ferry and out by the Southworth dock, the owner signs off by text and the photo, invoice and warranty land in their inbox. Say yes to the work and the $99 diagnostic becomes part of that written figure; say no and the invoice reads $99, nothing more. Ice maker repair pricing in Port Orchard does not exist until the diagnostic is finished, and then it exists on paper.
Well water. The fill valve in a refrigerator passes a couple of ounces through a port about the width of a pencil lead, and Kitsap hardness closes that port a little with every fill. A softener kept in salt roughly doubles the life of a valve. When it does go, the valve is a part the truck carries, and the technician sets the fill so the replacement starts out filling the mold completely.
Yes, because hollow cubes are an early warning. The shell freezes before the middle fills when the shot of water is short, and the shortage only grows. Caught now it is a filter or a valve; left a year it is a frozen tube and an empty bin in the July heat. The fill measurement takes ten minutes and tells you which one you have.
We can. The shop books from eight in the morning to six, plus Saturday mornings, and an ice maker repair rarely needs more than an hour. Tell the dispatcher when you leave for the yard or when you get home and the visit lands on the far side of it; the technician texts from Hwy 16 so nobody waits by the door.
Yes, as an independent shop rather than the maker's own service. Column ice makers have a separate pump, valve and level sensor, plus a drain that can clog, and the common parts ride with us. If the unit looks young enough that the maker's own coverage could still apply, we say so before a screw comes out.
Only partly. The iron arrives with the well water, and the lasting fix is a filter or softener ahead of the house plumbing, which is not something we sell. What we can do is check the refrigerator filter, flush the line, scrub the mold and bin and confirm the valve is not shedding rust from a corroded fitting, then dump the batch so fresh ice starts clean.
Phone or form, either way a dispatcher sends a two-hour window and a text the moment the truck rolls — from Harbor Country Drive, or off the bridge deck for Tacoma stops.
Clamp meter, thermometer, manometer where propane is involved. The failed component is identified and explained, and one figure goes on paper with the $99 built into it.
The truck carries what salt air, iron water and outages break: fill valves, defrost heaters, igniters, rollers, relays. Anything ordered comes back on our schedule, not your bill.
A complete run of the machine while you watch, the floor and panels put back as found, and the warranty term printed on the invoice.
$99 gets the meter on it, the figure goes on the ticket, the part is usually already on board, and the coverage term is printed on the invoice. Same card on both shores of the Narrows.
