Formerly Adam & Sam Brothers RepairRefrigerators & freezers
Warm milk, a freezer packed with frost or a puddle under the crisper drawers each points to a different part. We find which one with a meter and a thermometer, write the price down first, and usually have the part on the van.
Refrigerators around the north end of the metro live very different lives. A freestanding French-door unit in a 1960s Lynnwood split-level, a counter-depth model squeezed into a Mountlake Terrace Town Center condo, a panel-ready Sub-Zero in an Edmonds remodel and a second fridge humming in a Mill Creek garage all fail in their own ways. Adam and Sam set up the shop on St Albion Way, right beside I-5, so a technician reaches Brier, Shoreline or Lake Forest Park within minutes and heads north toward Everett or east toward Bothell and Kirkland with no distance surcharge. Reach us in the morning, Monday through Saturday, and a same-day visit is the usual outcome. Many of these calls go faster with the model number at hand: read it to us from the tag inside the fresh-food section, or type it into the booking form, and we can load the right fan or valve before leaving the shop.
Our weather shapes the work. Damp marine air rolls in every time a door opens, so evaporator coils here collect more frost, and each defrost cycle sends more meltwater down a drain that slowly clogs with film. Summer brings the opposite problem: during the June 2021 heat dome, when Sea-Tac hit 108°F, garage refrigerators across Snohomish County simply could not keep up. Winter windstorms add a third. When the November 2024 storm left several hundred thousand customers in the dark, the surge on restore cooked control boards and finished off compressors that were already limping. One thing we rarely fight is mineral scale, because Everett and Tolt water is very soft and inlet valves stay clean for years.
We start with numbers rather than guesses: a probe thermometer in each compartment, an ear against the freezer wall for the evaporator fan, and a look at the condenser fan and coil underneath or behind the cabinet. Then the freezer back panel comes off, because the frost on the evaporator tells most of the story. An even, light coat means the sealed system is healthy and the trouble is airflow. A solid block of ice means defrost has failed somewhere along its chain. A bare coil beside a running compressor sends us to the sealed system. Each suspect gets a meter reading before it gets replaced, and on inverter models such as LG linear compressors we confirm the board is actually driving the compressor before that word appears on a quote.
Most of what we open is Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, GE and Café, Frigidaire, LG, Bosch and older Kenmore, plus built-in Sub-Zero, Thermador and Fisher & Paykel columns. The van carries evaporator and condenser fan motors, start relays, defrost heaters and thermostats and water inlet valves, which is why many repairs end on the first visit. When a built-in board or a model-specific part has to be ordered, you get the timing in writing along with the price. Refrigerant work never leaves our hands: our own technicians recover the charge, braze with nitrogen flowing, pull a deep vacuum and weigh in the new charge under EPA Section 608 rules. Before we leave, we vacuum the condenser coil, test the door gaskets with a strip of paper, and set both compartments to food-safe targets of roughly 37°F and 0°F.
Refrigerator repair starts at $265. Start relays that keep dropping the compressor out and failed defrost heaters, thermostats or defrost boards are the repairs we make most, and sealed-system work, meaning a compressor swap or a leak brazed and recharged, starts at $850. Treat these as floor figures for the area, not a quote for your kitchen. The model, what the diagnostic finds and how hard the unit is to reach all move the number, so the exact amount is written down after the diagnostic and before any part comes out of its box. If the freezer in the garage needs a look on the same trip, its diagnostic costs $10 less. Repair-or-replace advice comes with the estimate: on a freestanding model past fifteen years with a sealed-system failure, we lay out the replacement math as well.
Starting prices for the north Seattle area, 2026. The $85 diagnostic is included in any repair you approve, and the exact price is in the written estimate before work starts.
Refrigerator
Frigidaire cooling failures cluster around the start relay's click, defrost faults that ice the coil, stalled fans, and the garage-fridge physics problem.
Refrigerator
Kenmore fridges are built by Whirlpool (106), LG (795) or Frigidaire (253), and the prefix decides the diagnosis, including LG's linear compressor.
Refrigerator
KitchenAid refrigerators share Whirlpool engineering: evaporator fans, defrost systems and dampers lead the warm-fridge list, with dual-evaporator twists.
Usually, when the fault is a fan, a relay, a defrost part or a valve, because those repairs cost a fraction of a new unit and the cabinet, insulation and compressor still have years left. The harder call is sealed-system work on an inexpensive freestanding model; we put that price next to the cost of replacing it and let you decide. Built-in units such as Sub-Zero almost always earn the repair.
Keep both doors shut as much as possible, move the most perishable items into a cooler with ice, and put a thermometer in the fresh-food section. Perishables held above 40°F for more than about two hours are the ones to worry about. Please avoid unplugging and replugging the unit over and over, since repeated hard restarts are exactly what finishes off a weak compressor.
Yes. Sub-Zero, Thermador, Fisher & Paykel and other built-in columns are a regular part of our week, especially in remodeled kitchens around Edmonds, Shoreline and north Kirkland. Many have a condenser behind the top grille that should be vacuumed every few months; a choked one is behind a lot of the compressor strain we find on these units.
It can. Our technicians do sealed-system work in-house under EPA Section 608 rules: they recover the old refrigerant, braze in the new compressor or seal the leak with nitrogen flowing through the tubing, pull a deep vacuum and weigh in a fresh charge. It takes a few hours, and we only recommend it when the cabinet and the rest of the system justify the money.
Not always. Check the breaker and any GFCI outlet first, since outages often trip them. If the unit has power but stays dark or shows an error, the surge when power returned may have damaged the control board, which is a smaller repair than a compressor. We test the board and the compressor windings before naming either one.
Talk to Adam & Sam
Fresh-food section warming with a week of groceries inside? Call us, or book online, where the repair comes with up to $18 off. The $85 diagnostic is folded into the repair price as soon as you approve the work.
Schedule a repair
Send the basics and we call you back with an arrival window, most days the same morning.