A considerable proportion of the buildings we attend across Hudson and Bergen County place the washer and dryer in an interior closet, one above the other, behind bifold doors. It is a sensible use of a small footprint and it alters nearly everything about how the equipment is serviced.
Access constitutes most of the appointment
A stacked pair must be separated and withdrawn to be attended properly. That means clearing the closet, releasing the stacking kit, and moving two substantial machines along a hallway without contacting the walls. Reinstatement includes refitting the anti-tip bracket, which is not discretionary and which is found absent more frequently than it should be.
That is an hour at each end on work which would occupy twenty minutes in a laundry room, and it is the reason two apparently identical repairs are estimated differently.
The building sets the schedule
Service elevator windows. Loading dock reservations. Buildings which permit no work before ten or after four. Superintendents who must be present. We establish all of it at the point of booking rather than discovering it at the entrance, because a technician arriving outside the permitted window achieves nothing for anyone.
Conditions particular to the arrangement
- The vent run. A dryer in an interior closet exhausts through a lengthy duct with several changes of direction, and each one costs airflow. The majority of slow-drying complaints in these installations originate here rather than in the machine.
- Shared risers. In many of these buildings every apartment discharges into one vertical duct with a booster at the roof. Your lint is not the only lint in it, and none of it is within your control to clear.
- An escape of water reaches two floors. There is no drain in a hall closet. A perished supply hose announces itself downstairs before it announces itself to you.
- Lint accumulates against the machines rather than on an open floor, where it would at least be visible.
Two measures worth taking
Replace rubber supply hoses with braided stainless every five years irrespective of their appearance. And have the machines withdrawn annually so the lint behind them can be cleared, which we will do while attending something else if you ask.
Call (973) 226-1000.
