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What to have ready when you call from the Temecula Valley

Start with which compartment is wrong, because on Sub-Zero built-in refrigeration that one answer splits the job in two. The refrigerator and the freezer are cooled by two entirely separate sealed systems and no air passes between the compartments, so a warm refrigerator standing over a hard-frozen freezer and a cabinet that has gone warm throughout are different faults with different parts. After that: the model number if you can reach the plate, which sits inside the door frame or behind the lower grille on built-in refrigeration and on the frame behind the door on ranges and ovens; any code on the display, read out exactly as it appears; and roughly when the trouble started.

Then tell us what time of day the trouble shows up. That question is worth more in this valley than almost anywhere, because Temecula afternoons run hot and dry and the evening air that pulls through the gap from the west takes a kitchen down a long way after dark. A cooling system with nothing left in hand at five o'clock has the whole night to put the number back, so the fault gets reported as intermittent at breakfast when the display looks respectable. If the warmth tracks the clock, we load condenser, fan and gasket stock. If it holds steady around the clock, the defrost and control side goes on the van instead.