Sub-Zero Service in Altadena

What ash does that ordinary dust does not

House dust is heavy enough to sit on the front of a grille where somebody can see it. Ash is not. It stays airborne longer, it is finer, and it works its way into the depth of a fin pack, where it does not so much block the coil as line it. A fin with a film over it conducts less, and an appliance that sheds heat more slowly simply runs longer to arrive at the same place.

The remedy is unglamorous. A grille off, a soft brush and a vacuum, taking care not to press the aluminium out of shape — and the maker’s own position on the chemical coil cleaners sold for this job is that they are unnecessary. On these streets the six-to-twelve-month interval published for a normal kitchen reads as a ceiling rather than a target.

A block that is also a building site

Rebuilding raises grit for as long as it lasts: saw cuts, sanding, render, vehicles on unmade ground. It travels at knee height and below, which is exactly where a built-in breathes, and it arrives at the coil of a machine standing in a house that was never touched by the fire at all.

There is no clever answer to that. There is just knowing it is happening, and looking behind the grille more often while the street is in this condition than you would ever need to otherwise.

Cabinets that came through the fire itself

An appliance out of a damaged structure is a separate question and an honest one deserves a look rather than an opinion offered over the phone. Smoke reaches places a brush does not, and what a cabinet needs after that depends on where it stood and what reached it. Nobody can grade that from a photograph, and nothing here should be read as a promise about a particular machine.