Display Chiller Repair and Installation

Display chiller repair, installation and maintenance in London

Climate Flow Limited carries out display chiller repair, installation and maintenance for shops, convenience stores, forecourts, cafés and food-to-go counters across London and surrounding areas. We work on multidecks and glass-door chillers. When a cabinet stops holding temperature, an F-Gas certified engineer finds the fault, repairs it and checks the cabinet temperature before handing it back.

What is a display chiller?

A display chiller is a refrigerated cabinet that keeps chilled food and drink cold while customers can see it and pick it up. There are two common kinds:

• Multideck: an open-fronted display chiller with several shelves.
• Glass-door chiller: an upright display fridge with glass doors, used for drinks, dairy and packaged food.

We install and service display chillers from Foster, Williams, Polar and Atosa, and cabinet controllers from Danfoss and Eliwell.

What temperature should a display chiller be?

Government food hygiene guidance says chilled food must be kept at 8°C or below, and that a fridge should be set to 5°C or below so food stays cold enough even if the temperature changes (GOV.UK food hygiene guidance on chilling and freezing). The same guidance says chilled food can be kept out of the fridge for up to 4 hours and must then be thrown away. A display chiller that has stopped cooling is a food safety problem as well as a repair job, so move the stock to working refrigeration where you can.

Why is my display chiller not cooling?

A display chiller that runs warm usually has one of a handful of faults: a blocked condenser, a failed fan, a controller problem, ice on the evaporator or a refrigerant leak. The signs to look for:

• Blocked condenser or failed condenser fan. The condenser is the coil that gets rid of the heat the cabinet has taken out of the food. The controller's condenser sensor protects the compressor against high pressure when the condenser is blocked or the condenser fan fails (Danfoss commercial refrigeration controllers FAQ). That means a dusty coil can make a cabinet trip or stop cooling.
• Controller settings. The setpoint is the temperature the controller is set to hold the cabinet at. In Eco mode a cabinet controller raises the setpoint and switches the light off, either from a button on the front or automatically. A cabinet left in Eco mode during trading can run warmer than the shop needs.
• Ice on the evaporator. The evaporator is the coil inside the cabinet that absorbs heat. Defrost is the regular cycle the controller runs to clear ice from that coil, and the engineer checks it is working.
• Refrigerant leak or failing compressor. Both mean work on the refrigerant circuit, which by law needs a qualified engineer.
• Doors and air curtain. A torn door seal, a door that does not close, or stock stacked over the air grilles on a multideck lets warm air in.

What does a display chiller repair visit involve?

1. Call. You tell us which cabinet it is, the make and what it is doing.
2. Diagnosis. The engineer checks the controller readings, the fans, the condenser, the evaporator and the refrigerant circuit to find the cause.
3. Repair. We explain the fault and the repair before starting.
4. Check and record. The cabinet is run down to temperature and the readings are checked against the controller.

We work around trading: the cabinet being worked on is emptied and switched off, and the rest of the shop keeps selling.

Display chiller installation

Installing a display chiller starts with a site survey. The engineer looks at where the cabinet will stand, the power supply, the space and airflow a plug-in cabinet needs to get rid of its heat, and, for a remote multideck, the pipework route to the condensing unit. A remote multideck has no cooling machinery of its own; it is cooled by a separate condensing unit sited away from the cabinet. We then install the cabinet, commission it, set the controller and check it holds temperature with stock loaded before handover.

Where a site needs more chilled storage than the shop floor can hold, a walk-in may suit better: see our cold room installation page. Many of the same sites also run ice machines, covered on our ice machine repair, service and maintenance page.

Display chiller maintenance and F gas leak checks

Planned preventive maintenance (PPM) is a set of scheduled visits that check and clean a system before it fails. On a display chiller a visit covers:

• Condenser coil and grille cleaned
• Condenser and evaporator fans checked
• Evaporator, defrost and drain checked for ice and blockages
• Door seals, hinges and door closers checked
• Controller setpoint, defrost settings and probe readings checked
• Pipework checked for signs of a refrigerant leak

F gas is the group of fluorinated gases used as refrigerants, and the law sets its own duties. It is against the law to work with F gas without the correct qualifications (GOV.UK guidance on F gas qualifications). Equipment above the lowest threshold must be checked for leaks at least once every 12 months, and more often for larger charges. Hermetically sealed systems, which many plug-in cabinets are, have no set leak-check interval unless they hold F gas equivalent to 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide or more. When a leak is found, the guidance says to repair it as soon as possible and repeat the test within a month to check the repair worked (GOV.UK guidance on checking F gas equipment for leaks). How often a maintenance visit happens beyond that is agreed per site.

Which sites use display chillers?

Convenience stores, supermarkets, petrol station forecourts, delis, cafés, sandwich shops and canteens all run display chillers, often several in a line. Each has its own trading hours, so we plan installation and maintenance visits around them. Our commercial refrigeration services cover the rest of the equipment these sites rely on.

Book display chiller repair with Climate Flow

Climate Flow is F-Gas certified and handles display chiller repair, installation and maintenance for multidecks and glass-door chillers across London and surrounding areas, with 24/7 emergency callouts. Call 020 3488 5452 or request a no-obligation quote. Climate Flow Limited, 2 Engineers Way, Wembley, London HA9 0JS.

This guide is general information, not a survey or a quote for your site; every system is different, so an engineer needs to see yours before any work is priced.