The Key: An Orderly Approach
Household appliances help their owners stay well fed and comfortable in tidy surroundings and in spotlessly clean clothes. Each is taken so much for granted that only when a device fails is its real value appreciated as anyone knows who has tried to make toast in a broiler when the toaster is broken. Furthermore, not only is a broken appliance of no use in solving everyday problems; it has become a problem itself.
Although it is tempting to toss out a small appliance or call in a professional to fix a large one, there often are good reasons for making repairs yourself. Doing it yourself can save the time it takes to ferret out a reputable repair shop, and save the money that such repairs or replacements cost. Also, you can often put the appliance back into service sooner, get it doing the job it is supposed to do instead of letting it sit around waiting to be fixed. Furthermore, each repair you do yourself gives you that much more familiarity with the machine and makes subsequent repairs easier.
Your new-found capability will tend to transfer from one device to another since all appliances are assemblies of a limited number of basic parts, many of which are illustrated in this chapter.
Familiarity with these parts makes the unknown territory within a toaster or a washer less puzzling. If you take the time to look carefully at the device and make some deductions about the roles the various parts are playing, you can form a pretty clear idea of how the device works and make quick strides to an effective repair. Keep in mind what the machine is supposed to do in normal operation, then look for the parts that fulfill these functions.
Your theory of the appliance's operation must account for all of the parts; appliance manufacturers simply do not include any extra, nonfunctioning parts. Furthermore, by observing telltale scratches in metal, the positions of arms and levers, and the placement of springs and hinges, you can usually discover how the parts are supposed to move with relation to one another.
Once you know which part performs what function, you will know which part is the most likely to be out of phase when the machine does not work. When an appliance breaks down, chances are most of it is still in working order; in most cases you need to find only one broken part in order to correct the damage and start the machinery working again. However, there is one caveat. The failure of one part can cause a chain reaction, It often pays to check parts that relate to an obviously damaged one, to see if any of the related parts have become damaged too or, alternatively, to find out whether the obvious damage of one part was not caused by some previous, and less visible, damage in another part.
Although it is tempting to toss out a small appliance or call in a professional to fix a large one, there often are good reasons for making repairs yourself. Doing it yourself can save the time it takes to ferret out a reputable repair shop, and save the money that such repairs or replacements cost. Also, you can often put the appliance back into service sooner, get it doing the job it is supposed to do instead of letting it sit around waiting to be fixed. Furthermore, each repair you do yourself gives you that much more familiarity with the machine and makes subsequent repairs easier.
Familiarity with these parts makes the unknown territory within a toaster or a washer less puzzling. If you take the time to look carefully at the device and make some deductions about the roles the various parts are playing, you can form a pretty clear idea of how the device works and make quick strides to an effective repair. Keep in mind what the machine is supposed to do in normal operation, then look for the parts that fulfill these functions.
Your theory of the appliance's operation must account for all of the parts; appliance manufacturers simply do not include any extra, nonfunctioning parts. Furthermore, by observing telltale scratches in metal, the positions of arms and levers, and the placement of springs and hinges, you can usually discover how the parts are supposed to move with relation to one another.
Once you know which part performs what function, you will know which part is the most likely to be out of phase when the machine does not work. When an appliance breaks down, chances are most of it is still in working order; in most cases you need to find only one broken part in order to correct the damage and start the machinery working again. However, there is one caveat. The failure of one part can cause a chain reaction, It often pays to check parts that relate to an obviously damaged one, to see if any of the related parts have become damaged too or, alternatively, to find out whether the obvious damage of one part was not caused by some previous, and less visible, damage in another part.
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