Also on the truck · North End Tacoma
The rest of the lineup
$99 to meter it, one figure on the ticket, coverage printed on the invoice — identical for every machine in North End Tacoma.
Soft Green River water never scales a North End Tacoma ice maker, so an empty bin in a Proctor or Old Town kitchen points to corrosion or age: a coil furred green, a plugged fill tube, a tired module.
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 North End Tacoma.
Tacoma Water arrives at a North End tap soft enough that an inlet valve can run twenty years without a grain of scale. What shortens its life instead is the air. From the bluff above Ruston Way down through Old Town and along N 30th St, kitchens sit open to Commencement Bay, and the salt that comes in on the breeze finds the smallest exposed metal in the house: the valve’s coil terminals, the module’s harness plug, the clamp on the fill tube. The coil stops pulling, the harness loses contact, the tube heater quits and the tube fills with ice. We drive over from Gig Harbor, exit at N 21st St or 6th Ave, and the eastbound toll stays off your bill.
The houses shape the calls too. A 1920s Craftsman in Proctor or a Tudor in the Stadium District often runs two refrigerators: a newer French-door in the remodeled kitchen and a side-by-side going on twenty years in the basement, down a narrow stair, where the beer and the overflow live. The basement unit’s ice maker is usually the older design with the arm and the timer module, and it fails at the module. The kitchen unit fails at the door-mounted valve or the auger motor. On N Yakima the ice maker may be inside a Sub-Zero or Thermador column with its own pump and sensors. Different machines, same order of testing.
Each drip left after the valve closes freezes at the tube mouth, and within a week the tube is solid. Sometimes the tube heater itself has failed. We melt the plug fully, watch a fill and the seconds after it, and meter the valve for a coil that no longer seats, because a tube that plugs twice a winter is a valve problem.
The mold heater or its thermostat will not let go of the cubes, or a loose cube has wedged the ejector. On the basement side-by-sides common in Proctor the module is often the single worn part. We meter the heater and the ejector motor, clear any jam and replace the module when it has failed.
A valve that closes late, a split fill cup or a tube aimed past the mold. We run a fill from beginning to end, meter the valve coil for a lazy seat, reseat or replace the offending part, and come back to the freezer floor an hour later to confirm no new sheet has formed.
A short fill. With no scale in the water, the cause here is a clogged filter cutting pressure or a valve coil weakening as its terminals corrode. We measure the fill in a manual harvest against the maker’s number, read pressure at the inlet, change an overdue filter first and replace the valve if it still passes too little.
A shut-off arm left raised, a frozen tube, a valve that no longer opens or a dead module. We check the arm and filter, then meter the valve coil and inspect its terminals, then test the module. Near the bay the usual find is a coil that reads correct with a connector so green it cannot carry current.
The Sub-Zero and Thermador columns on N Yakima and N 30th have their own valve, pump and sensors, and we test each before pricing anything. We are independent of both makers and tell you first if their coverage may still cover the unit. The common column parts travel across the bridge with us.
Freezer temperature is read first, because a compartment running warm slows the ice maker long before anything else complains. Then the supply: pressure at the inlet, filter date, the fill tube checked for the plug of ice that silences so many units. The valve coil is metered and its terminals and plug examined under a light, since a kitchen near the bay fails at the connector as often as at the coil. Then a harvest is forced by hand and the fill caught and compared with the manufacturer’s figure, and the heater, ejector motor and thermostat are tested in turn. You hear the failed part called by its plain name, and a single figure goes on paper. The truck carries the common valves and modules.
North End ice makers, as we meet them, live inside LG, Samsung, GE, Whirlpool, Kenmore, Bosch, KitchenAid and Frigidaire refrigerators, and inside the Viking, Thermador and Sub-Zero built-ins of Old Town and the North Slope. We do not touch standalone commercial ice machines. Owners of rental houses around the university district in Proctor approve by text, and the invoice, warranty printed on it, reaches them by email. Nothing for the bridge toll reaches that invoice. On money: diagnosis is $99, and a repair you approve absorbs that $99 into its written figure instead of stacking it on top. Refuse the repair and $99 settles the account. No figure exists until the diagnostic is finished, and then it exists on paper.
Soft water spares the valve from scale but does nothing about age or salt air. A coil terminal furred by bay air, a module worn out after fifteen years, or a plugged fill tube will stop the ice with no mineral involved. We meter the valve, inspect the harness and test the module, and usually finish with a valve or module on the first visit.
It does not. The Narrows toll is collected eastbound and we absorb it as part of working both sides. The written figure you get matches what a Gig Harbor kitchen pays for that part on that model, and the written warranty is identical.
Most often the valve keeps dripping after it closes, and each drop freezes at the mouth of the tube until nothing passes. Occasionally the tube’s own heater has failed. We thaw it, watch a fill, and meter the valve; when the plug returns within a season the valve is replaced rather than thawed a third time.
Yes. Column ice makers carry their own valve, pump and sensors, and we bring the common ones across the bridge. We are independent of Sub-Zero and Thermador, and if their coverage may still apply to your unit you hear that from us before we start, not after.
Possibly not. A freezer drifting warm slows the ice maker before it thaws anything, so we read the freezer temperature before blaming the module. If the freezer is holding, the fault is in the ice maker and the repair is small. If the freezer is warm, we say so and diagnose the refrigerator instead of the ice maker.
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.
