Save Money By Maintaining Your Own Commercial Fridge

A regular maintenance routine is essential when it comes to keeping your business’s refrigeration in peak condition. Here we take you through the basic steps that you can do to help minimise your maintenance costs and even save some electrical costs.

Keep It Clean

Getting rid of dust, grime, and build-up will always help. Schedule regular cleans both inside and outside of your unit. You can do this yourself. Just be careful of sharp edges and make sure you don’t get water in any controllers or electrical items.

Check and Rinse Your Drains

In certain examples like cake or sandwich displays, you should also remove the panels in the bottom of the cabinet and access the drains. Failure to do so will find all those crumbs turning to mould and slime. If the drain backs up you not only risk it contaminating your food, but the fridge could also ice up which will result in spoiled product too.

Caution: There are moving fan parts under these panels that are easily damaged or in the worst case could cut your fingers. There are also electrical connections in the base of the unit. Always disconnect the fridge from the power source before performing any cleaning practices.

Change Those Door Seals

Torn door seals will allow moisture-laden air into the fridge which can then cause ice ups. But it will also add to your electricity costs as the fridge is working harder due to all that hot air coming in.

Caution: Torn door seals will harbour bacteria and the health inspectors make door seals their first inspection item!

Replace Defective Lighting

Excellent lighting helps sell your product. Ensure that your globes are all working to maximise your sales. If your globes flicker or even turn off when lightly bumped, consider upgrading to LED strip lighting which is super reliable.

Caution: Some older type lighting circuits can be unsafe to handle. If you are not qualified it is best to leave repairs to lighting to a refrigeration service tech.

Clean the Condenser

The condenser is the component that looks like a car radiator. Firstly, turn off the fridge. Some condensers are hidden below your fridge and you may even need a screwdriver to remove an access panel. Once you can see it there are a few ways to clean it. The simplest way is to use a soft brush to remove the dust from the coil. Vacuum cleaners can help, but are not always effective if the dust is “sticky.”

Caution: When brushing a condenser, you will remove most of the dust, but a portion will generally be pushed deeper into the coil. Over time the coil will become badly clogged whilst looking quite reasonable from the outside. The only way to be sure of a clean coil is to use a torch as a backlight whilst looking into the coil from close up. If it is blocked, you will need compressed air or chemical cleaning to resolve it. Both of these techniques should ideally be performed by a tradesman as there is a risk of injury, damage to equipment, and even contamination of your shop with airborne dust.

What Else Can I Do to Save Money?

If making “sandwiches” is your prime line of business, you don’t have to get bogged down doing maintenance! One phone call to Allen Air and Refrigeration is all it takes to have us do all of the refrigeration maintenance mentioned above, but with the added benefit of our experienced tradesmen being able to identify more technical matters.

Maybe the condenser is on the roof, or maybe you don’t have basic tools? Maybe you are better off working “on” your business rather than “in” your business!

There is only so much you can do after all, isn’t there? Leave the technical stuff to us and regain some personal time in your life (or make more “sandwiches”).

Contact us for your commercial refrigeration maintenance today!