Emergency Refrigeration Planning

Businesses everyday loss thousands of dollars in product and productivity due to failed refrigeration systems. Most businesses do not have a plan to manage this type of mini emergency. Knowing who to call is half the battle the other half is best practices. The following are steps to take when your loss your refrigeration system so you don’t lose your head.

  1. Get what product you can into a working refrigerator or freezer.

  2. Pack the rest of the product together so it insulates itself.

  3. If you have a large amount of product left over get a rental unit on site immediately.

  4. If you can afford to lose the product left over call a repair company.

  5. If the repair company has to wait for the delivery of parts return to step three.


Alternate Failure Scenarios

Loss of power

1. Get what product you can into a working refrigerator or freezer.

2. Pack the rest of the product together so it insulates itself.

3. If you have a large amount of product left over get a rental generator on site immediately.

The temperature is slowly rising over a few days

  1. The Temperature of the unit is slowly rising despite the thermostat being the same.

  2. Asses the coils: there will be a large rectangle of thin slats of metal inside the unit and outside the unit. Sometimes copper pipes will lead to a unit outside the building. Determine if there is debris or ice in the coils. For ice step 3. For debris step 4.

  3. Remove the product from the unit and turn of the unit allowing the unit to defrost. If more ice forms in the following days move to step 4.

  4. Call a professional to have a technician clean your coils and service your unit. If you do attempt to clean the coils yourself be careful. They can easily be irreparably damaged.

Your Internal Thermometer and Thermostat do not match

  1. First utilize more than one thermometer to make this assessment as thermometers are more likely to fail or be poorly calibrated than your thermostat.

  2. If the problem is with your thermostat call a professional to service your unit as this problem can be representative of a failing unit.

    If you are in Maryland or DC and experience a refrigeration failure don’t hesitate to call RJH.

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