If you are in possession of a commercial refrigerator for your business such as a restaurant or catering company, it is vitally important to regularly maintain the appliance. Picture the scene – you are busy looking after the needs of a record number of customers at the busiest point in the week, the weekend, when out from the kitchen you hear those words you didn’t want to hear “the fridges aren’t cold enough”.
That is likely when panic would start to set in as you assess the situation and see that the cold blast of air is no longer present in the fridge. You may start to wonder how this happened and whether you could have prevented it. Well, the post below includes simple to follow tips that will help you to protect your fridge from breaking down and not operating properly when you least expect it.
Obviously if you have to, you should call out a fridge repair technician from a company like adk.co.uk, but this could easily be avoided if you pay close attention to the gaskets, drainage, corrosion and dust of your appliance.
Get Rid Of Dust From The Condenser
When the condensers are covered in dust or anything else, it stops them from working as efficiently. This will not only cause increases in your energy bills, but will make the fridge worker harder than it should and if the condenser is working too hard for too long a period of time, it could very easily and most likely will burn out and cause issues for your fridge.
Cover Acidic Foods
It is a good safety standard that you should keep food in your fridge covered. However, in order to stop cross contamination is not the only good reason to do this. Many foods have high levels of acid which can be part of the cause of corrosion to your commercial fridge. We are talking about food such as pickles and tomatoes. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, it is recommended that you store all food kept in your refrigerator inside non-corrosive, plastic storage containers.
Clean The Drains
At the base of any commercial refrigerator, you will find a drain. The drain acts as a pathway and way out for all the interior condensation that builds up. Once this liquid leaves it reaches a drip pan and is heated and evaporated. However, when the drain is blocked, the excess water collects and builds up and has nowhere to go. This causes flooded interior areas inside your refrigerator unit and creates a harsher environment for the unit’s condenser to work effectively, causing it to work harder and eventually burn out.
You can prevent unnecessary and costly repairs and flooding by cleaning the refrigerator’s drain every single day, without fail. If you have prep tables in your kitchen area that are close to the drain opening, you need to ensure that all crumbs and debris are kept away from it.
Check Gaskets On A Weekly Basis
Those small rubber seals can often make a difference to the performance of your commercial fridge and the size of your energy bill. Needed and expensive chilled air could escape through any tiny cracks and when the air starts to escape, the condenser and compressor of the unit has to work at an abnormally high rate which could easily lead to burning out the coils.
Therefore, you need to check and clean the door gaskets or seals on a weekly basis to avoid expensive energy bills and repair costs. If you see that some of the gasket is peeling away, not sealing properly or starting to crack, that is when it is time to replace the gasket.