26 behaviors · 11 appliances

Start from what it is doing, not from what it is called.

Each page carries the free checks worth doing first, what it usually turns out to be, and how the answer changes with the age of the machine.

Book a diagnostic (305) 615-5496

26 behaviors written up
5 appliances that display no code at all
23 codes, where the maker documents one
0 invented to fill a gap

Start from what you can see

Twenty-six behaviors, in plain words

Each page carries the free checks worth doing first, what it usually turns out to be, and how the answer changes depending on the machine you have.

It runs, the light comes on, and the food is warm
Refrigerator not cooling

The cabinet is doing something — you can hear it — and it is still not cold. On most of the machines this badge sells there is nothing on the front to read, so the first useful thing you can do is not a repair at all: put a thermometer in each compartment and note the two numbers an hour apart. That pair tells us more than any description of the noise, and it is the difference between an hour of guessing and a visit that arrives with the right parts.
- A cold freezer with a warm fridge is an air problem, not a refrigerant one
- Both halves drifting together is the dearer diagnosis, and worth knowing before we arrive
- Three free things — a blocked vent, a stuffed condenser, a door held ajar — end a real share of these
What it usually means
A puddle on the floor, or water under the crisper drawers
Water under the refrigerator

The commonest refrigerator call we take in South Florida, and usually the cheapest to put right. Where the water shows up is the whole diagnosis: under the drawers points at the defrost drain, on the floor at the front points at the drain pan or the door, and water at the back points at the supply line. Before you mop it, look and remember which of those three it was.
- Under the crisper is the defrost drain, and that is the usual answer here
- At the back is a water supply problem, which is the one that damages floors
- A cabinet that has been leaking for weeks is a cabinet-and-floor question too
What it usually means
Ice on the back wall, or a freezer that keeps growing a crust
Frost building up inside

A frost-free cabinet is not supposed to accumulate anything, so frost is always a message. Where it is tells us which message: a sheet on the freezer back wall is the defrost circuit, frost around the door is a seal, and a fine crust over everything after a hot week is usually the humidity that came in through a door that was left ajar.
- A sheet of ice on the back wall is the defrost circuit, and it will not clear itself
- Frost at the door edge is a seal or an alignment question
- Chipping it out buys a week; the reason it formed decides whether it comes back
What it usually means
One half of the cabinet is fine and the other is not
Fridge warm, freezer cold

This is the single most useful thing an owner can tell us about a refrigerator, because it rules out most of the expensive answers immediately. Almost every cabinet this badge sells makes its cold in one place and moves air to the other, so a cold freezer proves the sealed system is working and points the whole diagnosis at air: a fan, a damper, a duct or a coil under ice.
- A cold freezer proves the compressor and the refrigerant are doing their job
- The problem is air: fan, damper, duct or a coil under frost
- This is usually the cheaper half of the refrigeration repair list
What it usually means
Chirping, rattling, buzzing or a bang from the back
Refrigerator making a noise

Refrigerators are among the few appliances that give warning before they fail, and the noise is usually it. What matters is which noise: a chirp or squeal that comes and goes with the door is the evaporator fan, a rattle from the floor at the back is the condenser fan or the drain pan, and a click every few minutes with no cooling is the compressor relay. None of them are ignorable, and one of them is cheap this week and dear next month.
- A chirp that changes with the door is the freezer fan — cheap now, warm food later
- A rattle at floor level is usually the condenser fan or a loose drain pan
- Clicking with no cooling is the compressor relay and is worth attending to quickly
What it usually means
The cabinet is running and the food has gone soft
Freezer not freezing

The expensive failure, because nothing announces it. A freezer that has drifted from 0°F to 20°F looks and sounds exactly like one that is working, and the first sign is usually the food. In South Florida there is an extra suspect that is not the machine's doing at all: a cabinet in a garage is being asked to work at an ambient it was never rated for.
- Nothing tells you until the food does — a thermometer is the whole early warning system
- A garage in August is not the room the cabinet was designed for
- Upright and chest freezers fail in different places, so say which you have
What it usually means
A crust on everything, or ice growing on the walls
Frost building in the freezer

On a frost-free upright this is a message and on a manual-defrost chest freezer it is housekeeping — so the first question is which cabinet you have. An upright that grows frost has a defrost circuit that has stopped; a chest freezer that grows frost has been opened, or has a lid that is not sealing, and is doing what it was designed to do.
- Frost-free upright: frost is a failure. Chest freezer: frost is maintenance
- Ice at the lid line points at the seal or the hinge
- Chipping it out is safe with plastic, never with metal
What it usually means
The bin is empty and nothing is arriving
Ice maker not making ice

One question sorts most of these before anybody is booked: does the water dispenser still work? Water at the dispenser but no ice separates the ice half of the circuit from the supply in a sentence, and neither water nor ice sends the whole diagnosis back to the filter and the shut-off. Half of these calls end on the water side rather than at the ice maker itself.
- Water at the dispenser but no ice narrows this to the ice half of the circuit
- No water either sends us to the filter, the line and the shut-off
- The fill tube freezing closed is commoner than the module failing
What it usually means
The cubes are arriving but they are not right
Small, hollow or cloudy ice

This is a flow complaint rather than a freezing one, and it is almost always upstream of the ice maker. The mold fills for a fixed time, so if less water arrives in that time you get a smaller cube, a hollow one, or a shell that collapses in the glass. The filter is the first suspect, the supply is the second, and the third is a freezer that is not quite cold enough.
- The mold fills for a fixed time — less water in means a smaller cube out
- A filter past its date changes cube size before it changes anything else
- Cloudy ice is usually air and minerals in the water, not a failure at all
What it usually means
It runs, and the basket stays empty
Countertop ice maker making little or no ice

Frigidaire's standalone ice makers are countertop machines you fill by hand, and the failures are small-appliance failures: scale in the water path, a pump that has lost its prime, or the sensor that decides the basket is full being fooled by splash. Before anything else, know one design fact — the basket is not refrigerated, so ice melting back into the reservoir is normal and not a failure.
- The basket is not refrigerated: melting back into the tank is by design
- Scale is the ordinary enemy of these machines in this water
- A full-basket sensor fooled by splash stops a perfectly good machine
What it usually means
It is a few degrees warm, usually in the afternoon
Wine cooler not holding temperature

Almost every one of these calls is thermal rather than mechanical. These are single-zone cabinets with a glass door and a small compressor, and in a South Florida kitchen at 80°F they are fighting the room all day. Before a part is quoted we want to know two things: what it holds overnight, and whether the cabinet has anywhere to send its heat.
- Holding overnight but drifting in the afternoon is the room, not the machine
- A cabinet built flush into a run with no grille is recirculating its own heat
- Glass doors gain heat, and a full rack can hold one open by a fraction
What it usually means
Water standing in the bottom when the cycle ends
Dishwasher not draining

On these machines this is usually something caught rather than something broken, and the filter at the bottom of the tub is the first place to look — it is a two-minute job, most owners have never been shown it, and it ends a large share of these calls. The second place is not in the dishwasher at all: the drain hose, the air gap and the disposal connection under the sink.
- The filter and the sump first: this is the answer more often than a pump is
- A new disposal with its knock-out plug still in place blocks every dishwasher fitted to it
- Slow draining and not draining at all point at different halves of the list
What it usually means
Dishes come out gritty, filmed or still dirty
Dishwasher not cleaning

Almost always water not reaching the dishes rather than water that is not hot enough. Spray arms block, filters silt up, and a tall item in the lower rack stops the upper arm turning — and each of those cleans some of the load perfectly, which is why the complaint so often sounds like loading. In this water, scale is the other half of the story.
- Blocked arms clean part of the load perfectly, which is why it looks like loading
- A filter unwashed for a year recirculates what it caught
- Film that wipes off is scale; film that does not is etching, and only one has a repair
What it usually means
Everything is wet at the end, plastics worst of all
Dishwasher not drying

Worth knowing before you book: Frigidaire's plainer dishwashers dry by holding the heat of the final rinse rather than by blowing air, so plastics coming out damp is close to normal and no repair will change it. Where china and glass are also wet, the heater, the vent flap or the rinse aid dispenser is genuinely at issue.
- Damp plastic on the plainer machines is the design, not a failure
- Rinse aid changes drying more than any setting on the panel
- Wet china as well as wet plastic is the version worth a visit
What it usually means
Water on the floor, or a damp cabinet next to the machine
Dishwasher leaking

The job here is finding where the water comes from, because the three usual sources need three different repairs. Water at the front is the door seal or the vent, water at the back is the supply or drain connection, and water underneath is the sump or the pump. A dishwasher that has been leaking quietly for weeks is also a cabinet and floor problem, and we would rather say that plainly.
- Where and when the water appears decides the whole repair
- A slow leak at the back damages the cabinet long before it reaches the floor
- A machine racked out of square after new countertops leaks at one corner
What it usually means
The cycle ended and the drum is still full
Washer will not drain

On the older machines that fill South Florida closets this is usually an obstruction rather than a failure, and on a front-loader there is a filter trap behind the lower panel that almost nobody has ever opened. Coins, hairpins, a child's sock: they clear the drum and stop at the pump. The other half of the answer is not in the machine at all — the hose, the standpipe, and in an apartment the stack it shares with the flat above.
- The filter trap on a front-loader is the first place to look and most owners have never opened it
- A pump that hums and moves nothing is blocked rather than dead
- In a condominium a surcharging stack puts the water back and the machine is innocent
What it usually means
The load comes out soaked, or the spin never starts
Washer will not spin

Two quite different machines wear this complaint. On a top-loader it is usually the lid switch or the drive; on a front-loader it is the door lock, the belt or a load the machine has decided it cannot balance. The useful thing you can tell us is whether the drum turns freely by hand and whether the machine tried and gave up or never tried at all.
- Top-loaders: the lid switch is one of the most common failures on an older machine
- Front-loaders: the door lock has to report closed before anything spins
- A machine that tries and aborts is a balance story, not an electrical one
What it usually means
Water on the laundry room floor
Washer leaking

Where the water appears decides the repair, so the first job is watching rather than mopping. Front of a front-loader is the door boot or the glass; behind the machine is a hose or the inlet valve; water that appears only during the drain is the pump, a clamp, or a standpipe that cannot take the flow. And in this climate the door boot is the one we find most.
- Front, back or only-on-drain — three different repairs
- A door boot in Miami never dries between washes and eventually perishes at the fold
- Fill hoses have a service life, and the ones that burst flood a building
What it usually means
It tumbles, and the clothes come out cold and damp
Dryer not heating

The first thing to establish is whether the machine is failing to make heat or failing to move air, because in South Florida the second is far more common — and no part fitted will fix a duct. Where it is genuinely heat, an electric machine and a gas machine are two different repairs, so knowing which you have shortens the visit.
- Airflow is the commoner answer here, and it is not a part
- An electric dryer running on one leg of its supply tumbles cold with a perfect element
- A thermal cutout that has opened is a symptom: it opened for a reason
What it usually means
Everything dries eventually, but nothing dries in one go
Dryer takes two or three cycles

This is the same complaint as no heat, one step earlier, and it has the same answer nine times out of ten: air. A duct with lint in it, a vent flap that no longer opens fully, a screen that is clean but a housing that is not. The genuine machine failures — a moisture sensor coated with softener, a partly failed element — are the rest.
- Nine out of ten are airflow, and airflow is not a part
- A moisture sensor coated with fabric softener ends the cycle early, every time
- Overloading is real: a dryer needs room to tumble
What it usually means
A noise that started quietly and is getting worse
Dryer squealing or thumping

Dryers give more warning than anything else in the house. The squeal of a dry roller or the thump of a worn idler starts weeks before the belt goes, and a machine caught at the noise stage is a straightforward job with common parts. Left until the drum stops turning, it is the same parts plus a wasted trip.
- The noise is a warning, and acting on it is cheaper than waiting
- A motor running with a still drum is a broken belt, and forcing it helps nothing
- Rollers, idler and belt wear together and are replaced together
What it usually means
It stays cold, or never gets near the temperature you set
Oven not heating

Two complaints wear one title, and separating them saves a visit. An oven that is stone cold is an element, an igniter or a supply problem; an oven that heats but stops well short is almost always the sensor or the calibration. A thermometer on the middle shelf tells us which one you have, and that decides what rides on the van.
- Stone cold and never-hot-enough are different repairs
- On gas, a weak igniter gives slow heat rather than no heat — the classic misdiagnosis
- An oven thermometer is the cheapest diagnostic tool in the kitchen
What it usually means
Cakes sink, edges burn, everything takes longer than the recipe
Oven temperature is wrong

Sometimes a failure, sometimes an oven behaving correctly and a recipe written for a different one. These cavities are allowed to swing either side of the setting as the thermostat cycles, and a new oven often runs truer — and hotter at the edges — than the twenty-year-old machine it replaced. A thermometer and three readings settle which of those you have.
- A cavity swings by design; the question is where the middle of the swing sits
- A drifting sensor is a part; a small consistent error is a calibration offset
- A door that leaks heat produces exactly this with nothing electrical wrong
What it usually means
It went into a clean cycle and never let go
Oven door locked shut

Alarming and usually ordinary. The cavity has to fall below a threshold before the lock will release, so a sensor reading high — which is common after the heat of a self-clean cycle — keeps a perfectly good door shut indefinitely. The one thing not to do is lever it, because the hinges and the lock assembly cost several times what the visit does.
- The lock is waiting for a temperature, and it may be reading the wrong one
- Forcing the door costs hinges and a lock assembly
- Self-clean cycles are hard on these ovens, and we say so
What it usually means
It clicks and clicks, or lights and goes straight out
Gas burner will not light

Mostly mechanical and mostly free to correct: a burner cap put back a few millimeters out after cleaning, a blocked port, or an igniter still wet from a boil-over. The pattern tells us which — one burner or all of them, clicking or silent, lighting then dying — and each of those points somewhere different.
- A cap out of position after cleaning is the commonest cause of all
- All burners clicking at once is one stuck switch, not four failures
- Lighting then going out is the flame sensor or the valve, not the igniter
What it usually means
It beeps, or a zone stops working part way through cooking
Induction zone turns itself off

Frigidaire sells twelve induction ranges and eight induction cooktops, so this is ordinary work rather than an exotic call — and most of it turns out to be the pan or the cooling rather than the hob. An induction zone stops for three reasons: it cannot see a suitable pan, it is too hot inside, or the power board has genuinely failed.
- Most 'failures' are cookware: the base must be ferrous and cover enough of the zone
- Induction makes its heat in the electronics, so its cooling fan matters
- One zone dead and the whole hob dead are different parts
What it usually means

Why the symptom comes first here

Half of these machines never say anything

This maker documents error codes for the top-load washer, the dishwasher, the electric range and cooktop, and the refrigerator. For its dryers, its freezers, its wine cabinets and its ice machines it publishes nothing at all — no table, no list, no article.

So on those machines there is nothing to look up, and the diagnosis starts from behavior and measurement: a thermometer left in overnight, a meter at the terminals, the run time listened to rather than read. These pages are written for that, and they say when a machine is not going to tell you anything.

Freezer not freezing

The lit interior of a clean, nearly empty white refrigerator seen straight on with its door open, glass shelves and clear drawers.

And the other half

Where there is a code, it is usually short

Nothing on this make alternates between halves and nothing arrives in two parts. The codes are single and short — F30, i20, E4, and a few two-letter words like Hd and SB — so what the panel shows is the whole of it.

What is worth knowing is that the maker’s own answer to most of them is thirty seconds at the breaker. That is worth doing once, and it is also how the evidence gets thrown away: photograph the display first.

The code archive

The empty white plastic tub of a top-load washing machine seen straight down through its raised lid, bright daylight.

Before you book

Three minutes that change the visit

If the machine shows something

Photograph it. On this make there is no way to ask the appliance for a code again once it has been cleared.
Copy the characters exactly, including letters. Hd is not HD and i20 is not I20 on the page you are looking for.
Note which appliance it is on. The same characters mean different things on a washer and on a range.
Do it before you cut power, not after.

If it says nothing at all

On anything that makes cold, leave a thermometer in a glass of water overnight and read it before the door is opened.
Listen to whether the compressor is running constantly, cycling, or not running. You can hear which without any tools.
Look for frost where there should be none — it is the clearest evidence a quiet cabinet gives.
On laundry, note which stage of the cycle it fails at. That single fact narrows it more than anything else you can tell us.

Or start from the machine

By appliance instead

If you would rather begin from what it is than from what it is doing.

Top freezer · French door · side by side
Refrigerators

The deepest branch of this catalog by a distance: 142 cabinets, and the largest single family in everything Frigidaire currently sells is the plain top-freezer refrigerator — 55 of them. That number is the brand in one line. This is the refrigerator that came with the apartment, and half our calls are for a cabinet nobody chose. French door adds 44 and side-by-side 31, which is where the ice and water go wrong, and the two-cabinet compact and bottom-freezer families are small enough to name individually. In this climate the work concentrates on defrost, on door seals that never fully dry, and on condensers that live in salt air.
- 142 cabinets across five layouts — top freezer is the biggest family in the catalog
- French door and side-by-side bring the ice and water circuits most calls are about
- Defrost, seals and condensers do most of the failing in South Florida
Refrigerator repair
Upright · chest · single door
Freezers

Twenty-seven cabinets, and unusually for a volume brand the upright is the bigger half — 17 against three chest freezers and a small single-door family. In South Florida a standalone freezer usually lives in a garage or a utility room rather than a kitchen, which changes both what goes wrong and what a visit involves: ambient temperature well above what the cabinet was rated for, a condenser breathing dust, and a door that gets opened with wet hands in August. A freezer that is quietly running warm is the failure that costs the most, because nothing announces it until the food is gone.
- 27 cabinets — 17 upright, three chest, the rest single-door
- Most of them live in a garage, at an ambient the cabinet was never rated for
- Running warm is the expensive failure: nothing tells you until the food does
Freezer repair

In the refrigerator · in the freezer door
Ice makers

This page is about the ice maker inside the refrigerator, because that is where Frigidaire puts them. The catalog has no undercounter ice cabinet at all — the standalone machines are three countertop appliances, and they have their own page. What we are called out for here is the module in a French door or side-by-side cabinet: no ice, hollow or half-formed cubes, a bin that has frozen into one block, or a dispenser that grinds and delivers nothing. The water side of that circuit — filter, valve, line — causes more of it than the module itself.
- The module inside the refrigerator, which is where this make puts it
- No ice, hollow cubes, a frozen bin and a dispenser that grinds — one circuit, four faces
- The problem is on the water side more often than in the ice maker
Ice maker repair
Countertop · portable · bullet ice
Ice machines

Three models, all of them countertop: a portable machine you fill from a jug that makes bullet ice in a few minutes. It is worth being exact about that, because the phrase 'ice machine' means an undercounter cabinet with a drain and a condenser on other makes in this trade, and Frigidaire builds none. These are small appliances with a pump, a compressor, an evaporator of steel fingers and a water reservoir, and they fail in small-appliance ways: scale, a pump that has lost prime, a sensor that thinks the basket is full.
- Three countertop machines — this make builds no undercounter ice cabinet
- Bullet ice from a filled reservoir, not a plumbed circuit
- Scale, pump priming and the full-basket sensor cause most of it
Ice machine repair
Beverage centers · wine storage
Wine and beverage coolers

Seven cabinets, and they are beverage centers and wine storage rather than the multi-zone cellars the luxury makes in this fleet sell. They go under a counter or into a bar run, they are usually glass-doored, and in South Florida they spend the year fighting the room: warm ambient, a glass door that gains heat, and a compressor sized for a small cabinet. The complaints follow from that — not holding temperature in the afternoon, condensation on the inside of the glass, a fan that has become loud.
- Seven cabinets — beverage centers and wine storage, not multi-zone cellars
- A glass door in a warm room is the whole thermal problem in one part
- Not holding temperature, condensation and fan noise are the three calls
Wine cooler repair
Built-in · front control · plastic and stainless tub
Dishwashers

Thirty-six machines, from the plain front-control model that fills a builder's kitchen to the Gallery and Professional trims with a third rack. This is the appliance where the difference between series is smallest: the same platform, a different fascia and a quieter tub. What we attend is consistent because of that — not draining, not cleaning, not drying, and water where it should not be. The filter and the spray arms account for more of it than any electrical part does, which is why the first questions are about what is at the bottom of the tub.
- 36 machines across three trims on much the same platform
- Not draining, not cleaning, not drying, leaking — four complaints, one machine
- The filter and the spray arms explain more calls than any board ever does
Dishwasher repair
Top load · front load · laundry centers
Washers

The current catalog carries two top-load washers and three laundry centers, and that thinness is worth saying out loud: Frigidaire's laundry line today is a fraction of its kitchen line. What we open in South Florida is mostly older — front-loaders from the years the badge sold them in volume, top-loaders in condominium closets, and stacked laundry centers in apartments where nothing else fits. The failures are the ones that come with age and with this climate: bearings, seals that never dry, pumps that meet a lint load nobody clears, and drains that back up in a shared stack.
- Nine current laundry machines in the whole catalog — two of them washers
- Most of what we service is older, and stacked centers are normal in condominiums
- Bearings, door seals, pumps and shared drains do the failing here
Washer repair
Electric · gas · stacked centers
Dryers

Four dryers and three laundry centers in the current line, and every one of them vented — there is no heat-pump dryer under this badge. In South Florida the vent is most of the story: a duct that runs further than it should, through a wall into a corridor or up through a building, collecting lint at every bend. A dryer that takes two cycles to dry a load is almost never a broken dryer, and saying so before selling a part is the difference between a repair and a sale. The genuine problems, when they come, are the element or the burner, the thermostat and the cutout, the drum rollers and the belt.
- Every dryer here is vented — no heat-pump machine under this badge
- Long duct runs and lint explain more slow-drying calls than any part does
- Element or burner, cutouts, rollers and belt are the real failures
Dryer repair

All 11 appliances

Worth saying

Several of these end with us telling you not to book

A dishwasher leaving plastics wet is drying by condensation and is working correctly. A washer that stops with a soaked load has been overruled by its own balance logic, usually by one comforter. A cabinet with no lights and a dead panel is often in Sabbath mode. We would rather write those down than take money for showing you a setting, and the pages say so where it applies.

Call (305) 615-5496 Describe it in the form

Before you book

The questions this page is asked

My problem is not on this list.

Call and describe it. Twenty-six pages is what we have written up rather than what we take on, and a behavior that is not here is a gap in our writing rather than in our work.

Two things are wrong at once.

Say both when you book. A washer that leaks and will not spin is not two visits, but it is a different set of parts on the van than either alone, and knowing in advance is what keeps it to one.

The machine cleared its own message. Have I lost anything?

Some of it. On this make there is no service display to ask for it again, so if the behavior is still there we work from what the machine does rather than from what it said.

In more detail

Why this archive matters more on this make than on most

Five kinds of machine that never say anything

This maker documents no error code at all for its dryers, its freezers, its wine cabinets or its ice machines. On those appliances there is nothing to look up, and the diagnosis is a thermometer, a meter and listening to what the machine is doing. These pages are written for that.

What is free, and said first

Each page opens with the checks that cost nothing, because on a volume badge a surprising share of calls end at a control lock, a filter, a level or a setting. We would rather write those down than be paid to point at them.

Ours and the maker’s, kept apart

Where a condition is documented, the maker’s own sentence is quoted and attributed. The reading around it — what it tends to mean in a building on this coast, with this humidity and this water — is ours, and it is written per page rather than repeated.

Describe it in one sentence.

What it does, when it does it, and what the panel shows if anything. That is usually enough for us to name the likely part before anybody sets off.

Schedule a visit Call (305) 615-5496

This article is based on:

Official manufacturer documentation
Internal repair procedures
Technician repair history
Company quality standards

Start from what it is doing, not from what it is called.

Refrigerator not cooling

Water under the refrigerator

Frost building up inside

Fridge warm, freezer cold

Refrigerator making a noise

Freezer not freezing

Frost building in the freezer

Ice maker not making ice

Small, hollow or cloudy ice

Countertop ice maker making little or no ice

Wine cooler not holding temperature

Dishwasher not draining

Dishwasher not cleaning

Dishwasher not drying

Dishwasher leaking

Washer will not drain

Washer will not spin

Washer leaking

Dryer not heating

Dryer takes two or three cycles

Dryer squealing or thumping

Oven not heating

Oven temperature is wrong

Oven door locked shut

Gas burner will not light

Induction zone turns itself off

If the machine shows something

If it says nothing at all

Refrigerators

Freezers

Ice makers

Ice machines

Wine and beverage coolers

Dishwashers

Washers

Dryers