Admiral Refrigeration and Range Repair · Redwood City, CA

Redwood City covers a lot of ground for one appliance brand. Downtown near the theatre district and the county courthouse, the older apartment buildings and the Craftsman-era houses off Jefferson still run original or hand-me-down Admiral ranges from a remodel a decade or two back. Up in Emerald Hills, the estate lots built in the sixties and seventies usually kept a garage freezer running long after the main kitchen changed twice over. Redwood Shores is the exception. The newer condo towers along the waterfront mostly came stocked with different brands, so an Admiral call out there is rare.

Admiral built both gas and electric ranges, and the common gas failure is the oven igniter, either a glow-bar type that weakens until it can't draw enough current to open the gas valve, or an older standing-pilot burner clogged with grease. On the fridge and freezer side it's the same story as most of the Peninsula, a defrost timer or a fan motor giving out on a unit that's been running quietly for twenty years. Since Admiral sits on the Maytag and Whirlpool parts platform, most of the diagnostic work is cross-referencing before I ever open a panel.