Sub-Zero repair in Hingham

Aluminium fins and a steel chassis in air carrying salt do not last the way they do ten miles inland. The fins corrode and lose the surface area they were sized for, the fan cage collects a gritty deposit that unbalances the blade, and screws and clips that ought to release cleanly are seized when a service panel needs to come off.

The practical result is a cabinet that runs warm on hot days and a compressor cycling longer than it should for the same result. The fault reads as refrigeration; the cause is a coil that can no longer shed heat. Cleaning the coil properly and checking the fan is the first move, not the last resort.

A unit left running in an empty house has nothing to do but hold temperature, which is easy work. A unit switched off for months and restarted is a different matter: the gasket takes a set, the drain dries out and blocks with what settled in it, and the ice maker starts a season on a line full of stale water.

If a house has been closed up, the sensible sequence is to run it empty for a day, check the drain and flush the ice line before it matters.

• Gasket run through by hand for a flat that has taken a set
• Drain line traced to its outlet and cleared before the first defrost
• Several litres purged through the ice supply before judging production

Hingham keeps a lot of genuinely old housing, and a built-in inside one has usually been fitted into a space with awkward floor levels and a service route through more than one narrow doorway. That is workable and it is worth measuring before the day rather than on it.