Commercial appliance notes

Reach-in refrigerators

The condenser on many reach-ins is on top of the cabinet, under a panel that fills with flour dust. A kitchen at 90°F plus a mat of dust makes the compressor short-cycle. Door gaskets that are torn or rolled let warm air in, and the evaporator ices over. A hinge that lets the door hang open a finger's width does the same thing. Check the door with a paper strip before you assume the refrigeration system lost its charge.

Dish machines

High-temperature machines need a final rinse near 180°F, which is why they have a booster heater. Low-temperature machines rely on chemical sanitizer, and an empty sanitizer jug leaves glasses that look clean and are not sanitized. Clogged wash arms and missing splash curtains drop the wash temperature even when the booster is fine. Write down the wash and rinse temperatures from the gauges during a cycle. A technician can work from those two numbers.

Ice machines

Scale on the evaporator plate stretches the freeze cycle and produces thin ice or no harvest. The water filter has a change interval. Past that date, scale comes back a few weeks after a cleaning. A condenser in the same hot line as the fryer will overheat the head and shut the machine down on a high-pressure control. Cleaning the condenser is the first step a tech takes, and it is often the whole repair.

This page does not book restaurant service. Email [email protected] with the equipment type, the symptom, and the city, and we will point you at the kind of company that works on that machine.