My 10 year old Roper/Whirlpool 20 cu. ft. side-by-side refrigerator stopped cooling properly. I picked out a local appliance repair shop form the yellow pages. They have been in business since 1957 and have an acceptable record with the BBB. Their basic charge for an on site repair call is $89.95 (Phila. suburbs). This fee is then applied against the total repair bill.
After the repair guy returns the paper work with his diagnosis they determine the total repair cost. The customer is then called and has the choice whether or not to go ahead with the repairs.
I paid attention to what the repair guy was doing. He was mainly checking the operation of what I later found out was the evaporator fan motor. It was working sporadically or not at all. The guy spent about 15 minutes doing the work.
I wanted to get an idea what the repair would cost. I had just paid for a $950 air conditioner repair on my truck and didn't need any more large repair bills.
The evaporator fan motor is just a small electric motor mounted above the evaporator coils in this model. I researched the price online and found out that they cost about $50. So, I figured this would be a relatively cheap repair. The repair shop called with a repair price of $359.76!
I was shocked. Before I did anything else I wanted to find out if I could remove the existing motor. It wasn't hard at all. It was held it place by a small plastic bracket. The only hard part was figuring out how to remove the fan blade before the motor could be removed. It was just a pressure fit over the motor drive shaft.
Once I knew how to remove the motor I knew I would be able to install a new one. So I went ahead and ordered the parts from
It took me about 15 minutes to carefully install the new evaporator fan motor. Now my refrigerator is working like new and I saved a couple of hundred dollars. Plus I get the satisfaction of doing the repair myself instead of paying an absurd amount for such a simple repair.
This was my first attempt at any type of appliance repair.
Warren