Silicon Beach · undercounter
Undercounter Refrigerator Repair
Undercounter refrigerators, refrigerator drawers and beverage centers set into an island, a bar run or an outdoor kitchen — diagnosed and repaired in the opening they were built into.
This page is about refrigeration that lives under a worktop: a 24-inch refrigerator in an island, a drawer unit in a bar run, a beverage center beside a sink, an outdoor unit in a built-in kitchen. Full-size built-in columns are somebody else’s page; these are the ones cut into a 24-inch opening with a grille at the floor.
They are all built to the same pattern. Sub-Zero’s undercounter design guide gives the opening as 24 inches wide by 34½ inches high, warns that a 3½-inch finished return will be visible on each side and should be finished to match the cabinetry, and says the unit may need to sit a quarter of an inch proud of the run so the door can reach 145 degrees without the panel fouling the cabinet beside it. Fitted flush it still works, but anything past 90 degrees may catch. When a unit like this runs hot, the reason is very often one of those figures rather than anything inside the machine.
What people call about
- Cabinet drifting warm every afternoon and pulling back overnight
- Compressor loud enough to hear from the next room with the door shut
- Water standing in the base of the cabinet below the lowest shelf
- Grille blowing air you can feel warm at arm’s length by evening
The undercounter series, one page each
- Visit and diagnosis $89, taken off the repair
- Vans run 8am until 8pm, daily
What it costs
Bands, not a number pulled out of the air
A $89 call-out covers travelling to you and diagnosing the unit properly; approve the repair and that $89 is deducted from what the repair costs.
These are the bands a undercounter refrigerator repair actually lands in. Each line is a range because the part, the model and how far the unit has to come out of the cabinetry all move the figure. You hear the price for your own repair — a firm number, not a band — after the diagnosis and before anything is fitted, and the $89 service call comes off that number the moment you approve the work.
Anything with no line of its own is quoted after the diagnosis rather than guessed at from a list. On a unit this size the machine is the cheap half: the opening it sits in, the panel on its front and the stone over the top of it cost far more, and almost none of the faults on these pages live there.
- Defrost heater, thermostat or sensor
- $290 to $670
- Evaporator or condenser fan motor
- $310 to $680
- Compressor or sealed-system repair
- $1,300 to $3,030
Reviews
Recent undercounter refrigerator repair calls
Left by households across the three pockets this site covers.
4.9/ 51,195 reviews
Panel-ready column behind custom fronts, and I assumed pulling it out would wreck the cabinetry. It came down to a temperature sensor reading twenty degrees off. Back in place with no marks on the wood.
Elio M.Westwood
Salt air off the beach had eaten the hinge cam on our undercounter unit, so the door hung open a hair and the whole thing sweated. New hinge, new gasket, and it seals properly again.
Fabrizio N.Venice
Our built-in quit during a valley heat spell and the fresh food side sat near sixty by evening. The condenser fan motor had seized, not the compressor as I feared. Fitted that afternoon and steady since.
Alba R.Woodland Hills
Common questions
Undercounter Refrigerator Repair: the two we are asked most
If yours is not here, the phone is the shortest route to an answer — and it is answered 24/7.
(310) 919-2538The cabinet warms every afternoon and recovers overnight. What is that?
A machine losing the argument with the room, then winning it again once the house cools. Nine times in ten the condenser cannot shed heat: lint across the coil, a fan that has slowed, or a grille with a plinth in front of it. All three are cheap. Ignored, they take the compressor with them eventually.
Can an undercounter unit be worked on without pulling it out of the island?
Usually, yes. The grille and kickplate come off from the front and the condenser, fan and control side are reachable that way — Sub-Zero requires the kickplate to stay removable for service precisely so it can be. Where the unit does have to come forward, the panel and handle come off first.
Book a visit
Book an undercounter refrigerator visit
The model code off the rating plate, roughly how old it is, and what it is doing. That decides which parts ride along. The $89 visit covers the call-out and the full diagnosis, and it is taken off the repair.