Commercial refrigeration repair, answered 24/7
When a cooler, freezer or display case quits, one number reaches us. Parksville, Qualicum Beach, Nanoose Bay, Nanaimo and the Central Island.
Call the line, then tell us four things
The more we know before we drive out, the better the chance the right parts and gauges come with us.
The refrigeration line
Have this in front of you
- What the equipment is, and what it is holding right now
- Make, model and serial number off the data plate
- What changed: noise, ice, water on the floor, a tripped breaker
- Whether product has already been moved to a unit that is working
If it can wait, put the same four things in the contact form, with what your last service invoice says. We reply within 24 hours.
Three things that buy you time
A failing box loses ground slowly at first. These are the moves that protect stock before anyone arrives.
- 01 Keep the doors shut Every opening spends the cold you still have. Pull what you need in one trip, then leave it closed and taped if it has to be.
- 02 Move what you can Anything that has to stay cold goes into a unit that is still holding, with room for air to get around it. A freezer that is failing slowly is still a freezer for a few hours.
- 03 Write the temperature down Note the reading and the time, and keep noting it. That log is what an inspector asks for afterwards, and it tells us how fast the box is losing ground.
What it is probably doing
Six calls we take most weeks, and what each one usually turns out to be.
- Box is warm and the unit is running
- Usually a loss of refrigerant charge, a condenser packed with dust, a failed fan motor or a defrost that is not clearing. It gets gauged and read before any part comes off.
- The coil is a block of ice
- Defrost has quit, or the door has been feeding warm wet air into the box. Ice is useful: where it forms tells us which of the two it is.
- The compressor starts, stops, starts again
- Short cycling. Controls, a pressure switch, airflow or a compressor on the way out. Worth catching at this stage rather than the next one.
- Water on the floor under the case
- A blocked or frozen drain, a cracked drain pan, or a door that has stopped sealing so the case sweats. Cheap to fix, expensive to mop up.
- The breaker keeps tripping
- Stop resetting it and call. A motor or contactor drawing too much current is a fire risk, and the fault behind it does not fix itself.
- It runs, but it has never been right since the last repair
- Send the last invoice with the model numbers. Second opinions on work somebody else did are normal here, and you will get ours straight.
Most of these calls land on a walk-in cooler or freezer or an ice machine. Both have their own page. If it is the air side of the building that has stopped rather than the cold side, that is the commercial HVAC page, and the case for keeping a local number on the books is in our post on it.
Fix it again, or stop fixing it
Some repairs are obviously worth it. A contactor, a fan motor, a defrost timer, a door gasket: parts that come out at a fraction of a new box and buy you years.
Replacing is the honest answer when the parts are obsolete, the cabinet or the coil is corroding, or you are paying for the same fault twice a year. We will tell you which one you are looking at before anyone goes further.
If the equipment is staying, a maintenance plan is what keeps the next failure off a Friday night. Scheduled visits, written readings, and a log a health inspector can read.
What people ask at 2 a.m.
What does the 24/7 line actually cover?
Is a cooler that runs but sits warm an emergency?
Can you fix equipment another company installed?
Do you handle the refrigerant side yourself?
Where the call-out reaches
The shop is in Qualicum Beach and most of the commercial work sits between there and Parksville. Nanoose Bay, Bowser and Deep Bay are regular ground too.
Parksville Qualicum Beach Nanoose Bay French Creek Coombs Errington Bowser Qualicum Bay Deep Bay Lantzville Nanaimo Ladysmith Chemainus Duncan Courtenay Comox Cumberland Campbell River Port Alberni Tofino UclueletOutside those towns, for scheduled commercial work, ask. We would rather tell you straight than take a call we cannot cover properly.
Equipment down? Call now.
250-797-2829 reaches us for commercial refrigeration, any hour, holidays included. For work that can wait for morning, book a service call instead.