How Can You Increase the Longevity of Commercial Coolers and Ice Machines?

A new installation can be a major unexpected expense if you haven’t been taking good care of your cooler or ice maker. Luckily, there’s two easy things you can do to keep your commercial refrigeration equipment at peak performance! 

Most walk-in and reach-in coolers can last between 15 and 20 years if they are well-maintained. Ice makers typically have a shorter life of around 10 years. While we offer commercial refrigeration equipment installations, we don’t want to see our customers go through major repairs or replacements for problems that could have been prevented. 

Keep It Clean

Any dirt, dust or scale buildup will reduce the efficiency of your refrigeration equipment simply because dirty equipment has to work harder to provide cooling and internal parts will wear out faster as a result. For your walk-in coolers, inspecting the coils and dusting the vents or fan grills at the evaporator can often be a huge improvement. 

For walk-in and reach-in coolers, we recommend cleaning both the evaporator and condenser coils twice per year. Coolers and freezers must release the heat created during the refrigeration cycle and they do this through the coils. If these get blocked with dirt or debris, important parts within the system will overheat and ultimately fail. The compressor is the heart of your cooler and, unfortunately, it's also the last part in the refrigeration cycle to be cooled. This means that it’s often the first part to become damaged from dirty coils and it can be an expensive one to replace if the damage is severe. 

What you need to do: check the evaporator and condenser coils often. It’s a good idea to look at these at least once a month. If you see a layer of dirt coating the coil, it’s time for a clean! You can do this yourself with a mild coil cleaner spray if you feel comfortable or we can do it at your scheduled service. If these coils get blocked with dirt, you will often see decreased performance and ice buildup on the lines if the restriction gets to be too much. That’s a sign to give us a call! 

Ice makers should be cleaned and sanitized regularly to remove scale and prevent mold growth. Vents should be dusted or wiped down to provide maximum airflow to the system. We recommend using a cleaner specific for ice makers when cleaning the unit yourself to prevent damage to the system. Harsh chemicals should not be used. 

Schedule Regular Service

The goal of preventative maintenance is to catch the small problems and address them before they have the chance to become major repairs. Just like a car with a leaking tire, if you don’t know the tire is leaking and you never check it, you risk having a blow out on the highway, resulting in major damage and a high repair bill when you could have just fixed a minor leak in the offending tire if you knew it was a problem. And just like your car, there are maintenance tasks for your refrigeration equipment that you can (and should) do yourself but you still need to schedule regular service with an industry professional for optimal performance. A trained refrigeration technician will be able to check things you can’t do yourself (like refrigerant charge) and will notice small signs of upcoming problems and help you create a plan to have them repaired.

Commercial refrigeration equipment works harder and requires more frequent maintenance than your home air conditioning system. While you can often get away with going 2-3 years between service calls on your home’s AC, your walk-in cooler should be serviced every six months to ensure the correct coolant charge and that all internal parts are functioning as intended. Professional service for ice machines depends heavily on usage and can range from 3-6 months.

If you need to schedule service or want to discuss the best service plan for your commercial refrigeration equipment, you can reach us at 512-651-4565 or email info@tripointref.com and we can create a maintenance plan for your unique needs.