The lights are back on. The fridge is humming, the AC is running, and your neighbor’s generator finally went quiet. It feels like things are normal again — but for your appliances, the next hour is often the most dangerous part of a Central Florida storm.
Most of the “storm damage” service calls I get aren’t from wind or water. They’re from customers who did the reasonable thing when the power came back: they turned everything back on at once. That’s exactly what you should not do.
Here’s the order I walk through with every post-outage customer, whether they’re in Palm Coast, Deltona, or Sanford.
Wait 15 minutes before plugging anything in
When a utility restores power after a big outage, the first minutes are rough. Voltage surges, sags, and brownouts ripple through the neighborhood as transformers stabilize. Your appliances’ fragile electronics — inverter compressor boards in modern fridges, dryer control panels, dishwasher mainboards — don’t tolerate that well.
Give the grid a quarter hour to settle. Your phone charger can handle it; your $1,500 French-door fridge cannot.
Start with the essentials, one at a time
After the 15-minute window, plug things back in in this order, with about 2 minutes between each:
- Refrigerator first. Listen for the compressor kicking on — a normal low hum within 30 seconds, not a rapid click-click-click.
- Freezer (if it’s a separate unit).
- Microwave (the GFI outlet test — microwaves are the canary).
- Oven / range — plug in or flip the breaker back.
- Washer, then dryer, then dishwasher.
Spreading the startups prevents a simultaneous in-rush current that can trip breakers or — on older homes in Flagler or Volusia — cause a secondary surge inside the house.
Check the fridge contents, not the fridge
4 hours with the door closed — food is almost certainly fine. 4–24 hours with the door closed — dairy, meat, and leftovers are probably still safe; produce definitely fine. More than 24 hours — when in doubt, throw it out. Especially raw meat, soft cheese, prepared meals, and anything that looks or smells off. Freezer items with ice crystals still present are safe to refreeze.
One trick that works after every storm: before the next one, stick a frozen cup of water with a coin on top of it in your freezer. If the coin is at the bottom when you get back, the freezer fully thawed and refroze, and you need to toss everything. If it’s still near the top, you’re fine.
Warning signs that something didn’t survive
Watch for these during the first 24 hours after restart:
- Fridge or freezer runs constantly and never reaches temperature → likely a surge-damaged inverter board or failing compressor.
- Oven or range displays error codes or dead control panel → most often a fried control board, sometimes just the user-interface module.
- Washer won’t spin or the lid latch reports stuck → typically the main control board.
- Dishwasher won’t start even when filled and closed → control board or door latch switch.
- Any appliance that smells like burnt plastic — unplug it immediately and don’t power it back on.
The good news
Most post-storm damage is a single component, not a whole appliance. A control board is usually $150–$400 in parts, and on a fridge, range, or washer less than 10 years old, repair is almost always cheaper than replacement — especially once shipping lead times on new appliances stretch out post-hurricane.
If something from your kitchen or laundry room didn’t come back to life properly, give us a call. We do post-storm priority scheduling across Volusia, Flagler, and Seminole counties, with bilingual service in English and Spanish. Most repairs are same-day or next-day, and every repair comes with a written warranty so you’re covered through the rest of the season.
