Anastasia Island is a barrier island, and 32080 covers it from Davis Shores at the north end, across St. Augustine Beach, down past Marsh Creek and Sea Colony along A1A. Everything on this page follows from that one geographic fact: on this island the ocean is on one side and the Matanzas is on the other, and there is no part of it far enough from salt to be treated as inland.
After the power comes back
An island loses power more completely and for longer than the mainland does, and the outages after Matthew in 2016 and Irma in 2017 are still the reference point for households here. The damage we are called about afterwards is rarely immediate. A control board or a variable-speed compressor drive that took a transient on the way down, or on the way back up, will often run acceptably for several weeks and then stop.
So the useful habit after any multi-day outage costs nothing: confirm that the display shows the setting you expect, that the cabinet is falling back to temperature over the following few hours, and that the compressor cycles off at some point in the evening. An appliance that came back “mostly” is exactly the one that gets discovered a month later with a freezer full of ruined food — and in a house that was empty at the time, discovered by somebody else.
Salt air is the governing condition
We treat 32084 and 32082 as the coastal ZIP codes on the mainland side of our map. 32080 is coastal in a more complete sense: the whole ZIP code is island. Three consequences show up on nearly every call.
Condenser fins. Aluminium does not stay bright in salt air. The film that forms both insulates the fin and starts the corrosion that eventually closes the gaps between them. The result is a built-in that runs longer every year for no reason the owner can see, and a compressor that is doing more work than the kitchen has any idea about. A condenser here needs looking at twice a year rather than once.
Hinges, latches and fasteners. Salt reaches the mechanical parts as reliably as it reaches the fins. A heavy panelled door on a stiffening hinge stops pulling itself the last half-inch closed, and a seal that is not quite closing is a frost problem, an energy problem and eventually a compressor problem.
Stainless. The brown speckling that appears on stainless in this ZIP code is usually surface contamination rather than corrosion in the steel itself. Left alone it becomes the latter. It is far easier to prevent than to reverse.
The housing stock, and what it puts outdoors
Marsh Creek is the only gated golf community on the island, and along with Sea Colony it accounts for a good share of the built-in refrigeration here. Davis Shores, at the north end just over the Bridge of Lions, is older and lower, and its kitchens are frequently retrofits into houses that were not designed around a modern built-in.
The island also has more outdoor refrigeration per house than anywhere else we work. Summer kitchens, lanai bars and pool-house undercounter units are ordinary here, and they take the full salt exposure with no walls in between. An undercounter unit outdoors on this island is a different maintenance proposition from the same unit in a Murabella pantry, and we price the maintenance accordingly.
Second homes and long empty stretches
A meaningful number of these houses stand empty for months. An appliance left running in a closed house, with the air conditioning set high and the humidity where it wants to be, will show you a mould problem in a wine cabinet or an ice bin that has fused into one block. If you are closing a house for the season, tell us and we will say what is worth doing before you go.
Getting there, and booking
The island is reached over the Bridge of Lions or the SR 312 bridge, and the Bridge of Lions in particular can add a quarter of an hour to a midday arrival. We schedule island calls in the morning where we can. Weekdays 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, Saturday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Flat $129 diagnostic, credited toward the repair on approval. Written estimate first, genuine OEM parts, 90 days on labour and 365 days on parts. Sub-Zero refrigeration only, from an independent shop.