PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE ON YOUR HVAC AND REFRIGERATION UNITS IS A MUST
It was 72 degrees in South Carolina yesterday. The tulips are coming up in my wife’s flowerbed, Bradford pear trees are ready to bloom, and I am calling my customers asking them if they want to spend the best $ 350 they'll spend all year. In these hard times, $ 350 is a lot when it comes to the bottom line but as the old adage goes “Pay me now or pay me later”.
At J.E.S. Restaurant Equipment, we have a full service company that is on call 24/7. We cover the upstate of S.C. repairing and replacing restaurant equipment. Most of our larger customers, like Red Lobster and Outback, have a stringent corporate maintenance plan that must be followed. Our smaller customers allow J.E.S. Restaurant Equipment to provide them with a plan of action to help maintain their equipment.
There are other customers that opt to wait and see if something breaks. One thing we don’t have on our work truck is a magic wand—my guys wish we did. Sometimes, an old unit just simply needs replacing, therefore putting money into a very old, patched unit is throwing good money towards bad.
Find a good service company that will advise you to either repair or replace your unit. I've had customers that ask me to install a $900 compressor into a 15 year old box. The box itself was not even worth $500 and it had another part go out shortly after. Where's that magic wand when you need it? Money spent on one thing does not make the rest of the unit new. Preventive Maintenance for the HVAC units and all Refrigeration units is a must; this is the closest thing we have to a magic wand. These are some of the results you will receive from a PM Service.
1. Cleaning condensers and evaporators allow better air flow, adding in the removal of heat from an area. This keeps the condensing unit from running quite as much and is thus more energy-efficient. A unit that is sitting idle is not wearing itself out. This is common sense that not everyone uses.
2. Air filters for the HVAC units need to be changed, same as above.
In the next few weeks, I will have a simple a preventative maintenance list that you can download and will fit most restaurants for a PM plan. Remember if you can’t repair the unit let J.E.S. Restaurant Equipment replace it.
Thanks for reading,
Eric Smith
Owner