Storm-season boards
Freedom Induction Cooktop Repair
Full-surface induction is an electronics platform under a sheet of glass. When a zone dies it is almost never an element, and diagnosis has to start at the inverter boards.
Symptoms we hear
Described as behaviour rather than as a code. We do not publish fault codes we cannot verify, and a symptom narrows a diagnosis further than a number does anyway.
- One area of the glass no longer heats while the rest of the surface works
- The display lights up but no zone will start under any pan
- The cooktop runs for ten or fifteen minutes and then shuts the zone down
- A pan that used to be recognised is now reported as no pan detected
- Fan noise from under the cabinet that keeps running long after cooking
- Touch controls respond in one region of the panel and ignore another
- Power drops on its own from a high setting to a low one
- A hairline crack or chip in the glass with the surface still operating
What actually fails
- Inverter and coil boards, which fail per zone group rather than across the whole surface
- The electronics cooling fan, which draws grease-laden air from the cabinet and stalls on the bearing
- The touch control and display interface, including its ribbon connection to the main board
- Under-glass thermistors that shut a zone down early when they drift or lose contact
- Installations with blocked underside clearance, which cook the inverters and cause repeat failures
- Supply-side faults on one leg of the 240V feed, which present as half the cooktop being dead
A cooktop with no burners
The Freedom Induction Cooktop is not a hob with elements under it. It is a dense array of induction coils and inverter electronics laid edge to edge beneath one piece of glass, with pan detection deciding in real time which coils to energise and how to group them. That architecture is why the language customers use on the phone rarely maps onto the fault. There is no burner to replace, no element to swap, and no simple continuity test that settles the question. When the left-hand third of a 48-inch surface stops responding, the honest first question is which inverter board covers that third and whether it is the board, its supply leg, or the interface telling it to run.
We diagnose these units cold, then under load, then thermally. A zone that heats for twelve minutes and quits is behaving differently from a zone that never starts, and the two failures live in different parts of the machine.
What we check first, and why
Pan detection is the most common false alarm. Induction couples to ferrous metal, so a pan that has warped, that has a sandwich base with a thin magnetic layer, or that has simply been replaced with a nicer non-magnetic one, will read as absent. We carry a magnet and a known-good test pan, and if the cooktop recognises ours it has told us something useful for free.
After that the order is unglamorous. We confirm both legs of the 240V supply at the appliance, not at the panel, because a single open leg produces exactly the symptom of half a cooktop working. We read the cooling fan, because these surfaces reject a surprising amount of heat downward and the fan is the only thing standing between the inverters and their own waste heat. Then we get into the boards.
Why installation quality decides the repair bill
Full-surface induction needs air. The manufacturer specifies clearance beneath the unit and around the cabinet cutout for a reason, and in this market we regularly open cabinets where a drawer box, a granite substrate, a run of ducting or a well-meaning sheet of insulation has closed off that path. The cooktop will work. It will also cook its own inverters, and it will do it again eight months after a board replacement.
When we find that, we say so in the written estimate before any part is ordered. Replacing a board into an installation that killed the last one is not a repair, it is a subscription. Sometimes the fix is a cabinet modification that takes an hour and costs nothing in parts.
Storm-season electronics
Northeast Florida averages around 68 thunderstorm days a year. Induction cooktops are the most electronics-dense appliance in most of the kitchens we work in, and they sit on a dedicated high-current circuit that runs a long way back to the panel. We see interface boards that survive a nearby strike while the inverter stage does not, and we see units that come back to life once the supply is corrected. A cooktop that went dark during a storm is worth diagnosing rather than replacing.
Glass, and when to stop
A chipped or cracked surface is a stop. The glass is structural and it is the only barrier between the coils and everything spilled on top of them. We will not power up a cracked surface for a customer, and we will tell you plainly when the glass cost puts the repair close enough to replacement that the decision belongs to you rather than to us.
What a visit looks like
A flat $129 diagnostic covers the visit and the findings, and it is credited toward the repair when you approve the work. You get a written estimate before a part is ordered or fitted. Parts come through the same BSH distribution channel that serves Thermador, Bosch and Gaggenau, which is one of the practical advantages of these appliances sharing a parent. Labour carries 90 days, parts carry 365.
We are an independent shop. We are not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by the manufacturer, and we do not claim any factory program. What we have is time on these specific machines and a habit of proving the fault before quoting the part.
Local factor
Storm-season boards
Around 68 thunderstorm days a year put repeated transient stress on control boards and power supplies.
Which is why the first questions on a call are where the appliance is installed and how long it has been there, not which model it is.
How the visit works
Diagnostic
$129 flat diagnostic, credited toward the repair when you approve the work.
Estimate
A written estimate comes before any part is ordered or fitted. How pricing works
Warranty
90 days labour, 365 days parts, genuine OEM components. Warranty terms
Parts
Genuine OEM parts, ordered through the same BSH distribution channel that serves Thermador, Bosch and Gaggenau.
Customer reviews
4.3 out of 5, across 42 customer reviews
After a induction cooktops visit
Each entry is one visit: what failed, what was measured, what was changed. They are printed as they were given to us, and the less flattering ones are printed too.
Our induction top kept throwing an error and shutting down mid cook. He found the cooling fan choked with dust and a temperature sensor on the coil reading high. Cleaned, sensor replaced, no errors.
Selma S.2025-12-11
It cooks properly again after the board swap. The problem was the wait. The part took the best part of a month to arrive and I had to prompt for an update more than once during that time.
Ursula U.2025-11-13
One zone was cycling on and off at full setting. He diagnosed a thermal cutout tripping because the underside was packed with lint from the cabinet below. Cleaned out, and it has held since.
Warren W.2025-10-16
Where this comes up
Areas that name this appliance class, hardest published water first.
12 mi by road · 20 min
Nocatee
12 mi by road · 24 min
Orange Park
17 mi by road · 28 min
Riverside and Avondale
18 mi by road · 26 min
World Golf Village
18 mi by road · 30 min
Oakleaf
22 mi by road · 35 min
Ponte Vedra Beach
Read first
Articles covering this appliance class, pulled from their own frontmatter.
6 min read
Before you call
Some faults are not faults. A short list of checks worth doing first, and the details that make a diagnostic visit faster and cheaper when one is needed.
6 min read
Storms and control boards
This region averages about 68 thunderstorm days a year. Why appliance boards fail in clusters afterwards, and how to tell a dead board from a supply fault.
6 min read
Old kitchen circuits
Riverside, Avondale and Ortega kitchens were wired long before dedicated 20A circuits. How shared supply produces appliance faults that test fine afterwards.
Related appliances
Ventilation
Hoods, inline blowers and roof-mounted units. The motor is often nowhere near the kitchen, and on the coast it is sitting in salt air all year.
Professional ranges
One appliance doing two jobs. The rangetop half and the oven half fail in completely different ways, and a range visit has to cover both properly.
Gas rangetops
Star burners, ExtraLow simmer and a griddle or grill module in one drop-in top. Most faults are ignition, gas flow or a control that has stopped cycling correctly.
Wall ovens
Built into cabinetry, carrying a heavy door and a lot of heat. Wall ovens fail at the door, at the sensor and at whatever the last self-clean cycle pushed too far.
Independent, and saying so plainly
Meridian Appliance Works is an independent service company. We are not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Thermador or BSH Home Appliances. We are not a Thermador service centre and we do not hold or claim any Thermador or BSH Home Appliances accreditation. We name the brand only to say which appliances we work on.
Meridian Appliance Works is an independent appliance repair company. We are not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Thermador or its parent company. All brand names and model numbers are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the appliances we service.
Next step
Book a diagnostic
Tell us the appliance and what it is doing. We will give you a written estimate before anything is ordered.
Mon–Fri 8am–6pm · Sat 9am–4pm
Request a visit- $129 flat diagnostic, credited toward the repair when you approve the work.
- 90 days labour, 365 days parts, genuine OEM components.