Commercial ice machine repair and cleaning
No ice, slow ice, or ice that tastes of the water it came from. Kitchens, bars, hotels and care homes across the Central Island.
Ice is a water job too
An ice machine is a refrigeration system and a small water treatment plant sharing one cabinet. Most of what we are called to is the water half: scale on the evaporator, a filter nobody changed, a valve that will not close, a drain that will not drain.
The cold half fails the way all refrigeration fails, through charge, fans, contactors and controls. We work on both, and on the bin and dispenser at the end of it.
Who calls us: restaurants and pubs that run dry mid-service, hotels with a machine on every floor, clubs and care homes where the machine has to be as clean as it is cold.
Kitchens and bars we cover
Ice machine work runs on the same call-out as the rest of the commercial refrigeration.
The shop sits in Qualicum Beach, and most of the kitchens we look after are between there and Parksville. Nanoose Bay, Bowser and Deep Bay are regular ground as well, and a machine in any of them goes on the same run as the coolers.
Further out, for scheduled commercial work, ask. We will tell you straight whether we can cover it properly, which is worth more to a kitchen than a yes.
What a proper cleaning takes
A strip-down, a descale and a full harvest cycle watched from start to finish. This is the work, and why it takes a while.
- 01 Shut it down and strip it Power and water off, bin emptied, and every part the ice touches comes out: curtain, spillway, distribution tube, bin baffle.
- 02 Descale the water side Scale comes off the evaporator and out of the water system, then the whole circuit is flushed. Hard water is what finishes an evaporator plate early.
- 03 Sanitize and rebuild Sanitizer through the same parts and surfaces, gaskets seated properly on the way back together, filter changed if it is due.
- 04 Run it and watch a full cycle First batches go in the drain. Then cycle times, water level, harvest and condenser temperature get checked with the machine running, not with the door shut.
Refrigerant work on the cold side is restricted to an approved person under B.C. Reg. 387/99, which is the same rule that governs a walk-in or a display case.
Fix it, or replace it
The honest split, so you are not paying twice to find out.
Usually worth repairing
- One part has failed: water valve, pump, fan motor, contactor, control board
- The evaporator plate is sound and the cabinet is clean inside
- Parts for the model are still available
- The machine still matches what the kitchen actually gets through
Usually time to replace
- The evaporator or the bin is corroding through
- Parts are obsolete, or the board is unobtainable
- It cannot keep up on a busy night, which is a sizing problem a repair will not fix
- You have paid for the same fault twice in a year
The machines this covers
Heads, bins, dispensers and the water that feeds them.
Filtration is part of the job rather than an upsell at the end of it. A machine on untreated hard water will scale up again in a fraction of the time, and you will be paying for the same cleaning twice. Kitchens that would rather it happened on a schedule put the machine on a maintenance plan with the rest of the refrigeration.
What kitchens ask about ice machines
Is it worth fixing an ice machine?
How often should a commercial ice machine be cleaned?
What goes wrong most often?
Can you service a machine another company installed?
Call about the ice machine
Call the shop with the make, model and what it is doing. For a breakdown in service, the phone is faster. For a cleaning or a scheduled visit, book a service call through the contact form.