Built-in refrigeration, repaired in the cabinetry it was fitted into

The visit and the full diagnosis: gauges on the system where that is the right test, temperatures read at the cabinet rather than off the display, and a plain account of what is wrong. If you approve the repair, the $95 comes off the bill in full.

Age on its own decides very little. A 500 or 600 series cabinet in good structural order is usually worth keeping, because the sealed system is conservative and the parts are still about. What changes the answer is a cabinet whose liner has been breached, or a compressor failure on a unit whose door and hinge hardware is also finished — at that point the repair starts competing with a replacement it cannot win.

No, and please do not try. A built-in is heavier than it looks, it is usually screwed to the surrounding cabinetry, and the water line behind it does not appreciate being dragged. Clearing the floor in front of it and the top of the grille is all the preparation anyone needs to do.

Almost always one. On a dual-evaporator built-in the two compartments are cooled separately but controlled together, so a failed evaporator fan, a blocked drain freezing back into the coil, or a damper that has stopped opening will take out one side and leave the other looking healthy. It is a useful symptom rather than a worrying one — it narrows the search considerably.

For most of them, yes. Factory-approved parts for the long-running built-in platforms are still supplied, and the mechanical items — gaskets, hinges, fans, drain heaters — are the ones that fail most and are stocked most widely. Where a control board is genuinely no longer made we will say so on the visit rather than order into a dead end.

Yes — dual-zone and single-zone, undercounter and full height. Zone drift, glass condensation, rack lighting and the behaviour of a unit after a power cut are the four calls that come up most, and they are refrigeration problems, not a separate trade.