Commercial Refrigeration Energy Saving Tips Safety Guidelines
Restaurants has the responsibility to monitor and maintain the environmental conditions of commercial refrigeration, pantries, and other kitchen equipment. Temperature and humidity can be a significant risk to many food products within a restaurant and other food businesses, and those risks may include spoilage, moisture and bacterial buildup and many other dirt that compromise the safety of restaurant costumers.
Restaurant owner who are in need of lowering their operating costs, can now achieve that through small changes to their current equipment. Energy efficiency is the first step that restaurant owners and managers should explore when it comes to lowering their expenses while raising profits. Commercial refrigeration is the area that managers will be able to recover the most lost money through energy efficiency changes like maintenance and guidelines on how to use the equipment properly.
Maintenance
- Check door gaskets/seals & clean them regularly
- Check self-closing doors if its working properly
- Check its air circulation
- Check & Clean evaporator coils and blades
- Clear the area surrounding the compressor and the condenser from any trash or debris
- Always follow the manufacturer’s maintenance recommendations
- Use a reputable service company to maintain your equipment regularly
- A regular maintenance program will reduce the risk of breakdown and maximize the equipment’s lifespan.
Regular monthly maintenance is the easiest way to make sure that your refrigeration unit operates at its maximum efficiency. It will also allow you to become more familiar with your equipment and therefore, easily identify when something is wrong, allowing you to act faster.
Commercial Refrigeration Maintenance is critical, especially when it comes to Walk-Ins, Freezers and Ice Machines. All refrigeration units need to expel heat. The majority of these units do this through an air cooled condenser coil which draws air through the coil. This causes dust and debris to form fairly quickly on the condenser coil. Failure to clean the condenser coils on a regular basis will increase electrical consumption and can lead to a major system component failure such as burnt wiring, failed condenser fan motor, restricted metering device or failed compressor. These are some of the possible consequences of lack of equipment maintenance. Without a doubt, poor maintenance of equipment will decrease its lifespan and increase electrical consumption. Which means higher operating cost and decrease in your profit.
Checking Commercial Refrigeration and Freezer Temperatures
Commercial refrigeration temperatures will rise the most when the doors are open. For the reason that the equipment thermostats are located near the doors, this can sometimes likely get a false read. In case that the temperatures are reading above normal, try waiting 5-10 minutes with the door closed and then check the temperature once again. Due to its location, door thermometers can also fluctuate as well as having inaccuracies due to door closings over a period of time. Always have a backup thermometer for proper temperature control.
Educate Your Restaurant’s Staff
Take time to talk with your restaurant staff and educate them about how important to keep the refrigerator and freezer doors and drawers closed at all the time. Due to the inaccuracies of the thermostats on equipment doors, you might want to consider a secondary thermometer to be set under or near the evaporator coil. If you have sensitive food products that concerns about a particular temperature, you should also have thermometers in place for them or freezer alarms to signal you if there is a danger of defrosting.
If a restaurant’s commercial refrigeration unit doors are left open, the smallest opening will cause the box temperatures to rise. This will leads to two problems for your restaurant:
- It will increase the heat and turn into room temperature due to the warm air infiltrating the unit.
- Eventually, the evaporator coil can ice over, restricting airflow to refrigerate your equipment.
Fun Food Thailand provides a wide variety of products to the commercial users. We carry a large selection of Commercial Ice Machines , Commercial Refrigerators & Freezers, Glass Door Refrigerators, Show & Display Cases, Refrigerator Work Tables, Wine Coolers and Walk-Ins, Slush & Juice Machines,Ice Cream machines, and other products besides commercial refrigeration equipment. Need help finding an item? Call our expert team at +66 (0)98 398 9770 or email us at sales@funfoodthailand.com.
We hope these refrigeration tips help you to maintain safe and effective restaurant equipment.
For other tips on how your restaurant can save energy and money, be sure to like us on Facebook and read our Blog “inspire me”.
