Commercial Refrigeration Maintenance and Repair

What is commercial refrigeration maintenance?

Climate Flow Limited carries out commercial refrigeration maintenance and repair for restaurants, pubs, shops, schools and other sites across London and surrounding areas. Commercial refrigeration maintenance is the planned servicing and repair of the systems that keep a business's food and drink cold. These include condensing units, cold rooms, walk-in chillers and freezers, cellar coolers and display cabinets. Our engineers are F-Gas certified, and planned visits sit alongside 24/7 emergency callouts for when something breaks down.

Planned preventive maintenance (PPM) means servicing equipment on an agreed schedule, so that faults can be found at a visit rather than at a breakdown. Reactive repair is the call-out when a system has already stopped holding temperature. Most sites need both. This page covers whole refrigeration systems. For the wider range of refrigeration work we do, see our commercial refrigeration services.

Which equipment does it cover?

• Condensing units. A condensing unit is the outdoor or plant-room part of a split refrigeration system: the compressor, the condenser and the fan that reject the heat taken out of the cold space.
• Cold rooms and walk-ins. Cold rooms, freezer rooms and walk-in chillers and freezers, including rooms we did not build. Planning a new room is covered on our cold room installation page.
• Cellar coolers. A cellar cooler is a refrigeration unit that keeps a pub or bar cellar cool for kegs and casks. New units are covered on our cellar cooler installation page.
• Display cabinets. Upright and display fridges and freezers, and glass-door multideck chillers. A multideck is a display cabinet with several shelves, used in shops for chilled food and drink.
• Blast chillers and ice machines in commercial kitchens and bars.

We install and service refrigeration from makes including Foster, Williams, Polar, J&E Hall and Danfoss.

What happens at a maintenance visit?

A maintenance visit checks each system in operation, carries out any leak check the law requires, and records what was found. The order of work is usually the same.

1. Survey. On the first visit the engineer lists every system on site, where it is, which refrigerant it holds and how much. That sets which leak checks apply to each one.
2. Check. Each system is looked at while it runs. Where a unit has to be switched off, the engineer agrees the time with the site first so stock can be moved.
3. Leak check. Systems that fall under the F-gas rules are checked for leaks and the result is written down.
4. Report. You get a record of what was checked, what was done and anything that needs repair. Repairs are quoted before the work goes ahead.

What we check on each system:

• Cabinet and room temperatures against the controller setting
• Door seals, hinges and closers
• Condenser and evaporator coils, and the fans that move air across them (the evaporator is the cold coil inside the cabinet or room that takes heat out of the air)
• Drains, and the defrost cycle that regularly melts ice off the evaporator coil
• Electrical connections and controls
• Pipework and joints for signs of a refrigerant leak

How do you know refrigeration needs attention?

Call an engineer if you see any of these:

• a cabinet or cold room running warmer than its setting
• ice building up on the evaporator coil or around a door frame
• the compressor running all the time, or switching on and off in short bursts
• water on the floor under a cabinet or inside a cold room
• a new noise from the condensing unit
• a split or flattened door seal

A warm cabinet is a food safety problem as well as an equipment one. Chilled food must be kept at 8°C or below, a legal requirement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Food Standards Agency guidance on chilling advises setting fridges to 5°C or below so food stays cold enough even if the temperature changes.

How often do F-gas leak checks have to be done?

F-gas is the group of fluorinated gases used as refrigerants. Under UK rules, the business that uses stationary refrigeration equipment is responsible for getting it checked for F-gas leaks. How often depends on how much refrigerant the system holds, measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent rather than kilograms, according to the GOV.UK guidance on checking F-gas equipment for leaks:

• 5 to less than 50 tonnes: at least once every 12 months
• 50 to less than 500 tonnes: at least once every 6 months
• 500 tonnes or more: a leak detection system must be fitted

Hermetically sealed systems, which include most plug-in cabinets, have no maximum interval unless they contain F-gas equivalent to 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Cold rooms and condensing units are usually split systems, so the normal intervals apply.

If a check finds a leak, it must be repaired as soon as possible and the system tested again within a month to confirm the repair worked. The operator must also keep records for equipment holding 5 tonnes or more, including the refrigerant added and the dates and results of every mandatory check, as set out in the GOV.UK guidance on recording F-gas. Our service sheets give you what those records need.

Who is allowed to work on refrigeration systems?

Anyone working on equipment that contains F-gas must hold their own F-gas qualifications, and it is against the law to do the work without them. A company that installs, repairs, maintains or decommissions this equipment for other businesses must also hold company certification. Climate Flow is F-Gas certified. Never open a refrigerant circuit or add refrigerant yourself.

A condensing unit job we carried out

When a condensing unit can no longer be repaired, replacing it is part of the same work. At Ark Walworth Academy we replaced the condensing unit serving the school's freezer room.

Book commercial refrigeration maintenance or a repair

Climate Flow Limited provides commercial refrigeration maintenance, repair and 24/7 emergency callouts across London and surrounding areas, from Climate Flow Limited, 2 Engineers Way, Wembley, London HA9 0JS. Call 020 3488 5452 or request a quote, and tell us what equipment you run and how many systems are on site.

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.