Guide 01 · Free, and it works
Before you call
A short, safe checklist. None of it involves taking a panel off, and it takes about five minutes — but it fixes a surprising number of appliances, and where it does not, it tells the engineer exactly where to start.
Read this first
Safety first: switch the appliance off at the socket before you touch anything, and never remove a back panel, a control fascia or an inspection cover. Inside a washing machine, a dryer or a storage heater there is stored energy, hot metal and mains wiring. Everything on this list can be done with the appliance unplugged and every cover still in place.
01Every appliance
Is it actually getting power?
Try the socket with something else — a lamp, a phone charger. Check the plug fuse if the plug is accessible, and check whether an RCD or breaker in the fuse box has tripped. A dead appliance is very often a dead socket.
Has anything tripped the electrics?
If switching the appliance on trips the whole circuit, stop there and leave it off. That is a genuine fault, not a nuisance, and it is worth a phone call rather than repeated resets.
Write down the error code
Anything on the display — E18, F05, a pattern of flashing lights — is diagnostic gold. Note it exactly, along with when in the cycle it appears.
Find the rating plate
Make, model and serial number. Inside the door, around the door frame, or on the back. Photograph it on your phone so you can read it out on the call.
02Washing machines
Clear the drain filter
Behind the small flap at the bottom front. Put a towel and a shallow tray down first — there will be water. Coins, buttons and hair grips live here, and a blocked filter causes both the 'won't drain' and the 'won't spin' faults.
Check the drain hose is not kinked
Especially if the machine has recently been pulled out and pushed back.
Check the machine is level and not walking
A machine that shifts across the floor on spin will make noises that sound expensive and are not.
Try an empty rinse and spin
It separates a load-balance problem from a mechanical one, and tells you whether it fills, drains and spins at all.
03Tumble dryers
Clean the lint filter — properly
Not just a pull of the visible fluff. A filter clogged with fine residue is the single most common cause of slow drying, and it is also a fire risk.
On a condenser, check the condenser unit
Usually behind a flap at the bottom. Many are removable and rinseable; follow the manual for yours.
Empty the water tank
A full tank will stop the cycle on most condenser machines.
On a vented dryer, check the hose
Kinked, crushed behind the machine or blocked at the wall vent. A restricted vent makes a perfectly healthy dryer look broken.
04Dishwashers
Lift out and rinse the bottom filter
The most common cause of gritty plates and standing water, and the one job the manual actually asks you to do regularly.
Check the spray arms turn freely
Spin them by hand. Clear the jets with a cocktail stick if any are blocked.
Check the salt and rinse aid
In a hard-water area — and west Hertfordshire is one — a machine short of salt will scale up and start performing badly long before it fails.
Check nothing is blocking the detergent door
A tall item in the top basket will hold it shut and leave the tablet sitting in the drawer.
05Cookers and ovens
Check the clock and timer
A great many 'dead oven' calls are an auto-timer left set. If the clock is flashing or the timer symbol is showing, the oven may simply be waiting for a programme.
Check the door closes and seals
A perished seal or a dropped door lets heat straight out and makes an oven look underpowered.
Note which parts still work
Grill but no oven, top oven but not bottom, fan but no heat — that pattern narrows the fault down considerably.
06Vacuum cleaners
Check the bag or bin, then the filters
Most 'lost suction' faults are a full bag, a clogged pre-motor filter or a blocked HEPA filter — and running a machine in that state is what eventually kills the motor.
Check the hose and wand for a blockage
Detach and look through them towards a light.
Check the brush bar for wound-on hair
A brush bar wrapped in hair and thread will stall the belt and burn it out.
07Storage heaters
Check the off-peak circuit is on
Storage heaters usually run on a separate circuit with its own switch or breaker. If it is off, the heater cannot charge overnight and will be stone cold by morning.
Check both dials
Input controls how much charge it takes overnight; output controls how much it gives back during the day. A cold evening is often an output setting rather than a fault.
Check nothing is blocking the outlet
A sofa or a laundry airer pushed against the front is both an efficiency problem and a hazard.
If none of that brings it back, that is genuinely useful information rather than a wasted five minutes — it rules out the easy causes and gives the engineer somewhere to start. Ring 07973 427699 and describe what you found.