The overall performance of a cold storage facility hinges on proper maintenance management. By establishing a guideline for daily, monthly, and annual inspections overall operating costs are kept to a minimum. Only certified personnel should be responsible for oversight of these facilities and their daily operations. The checklist provided below is an example of required routine maintenance for all facilities.
Daily Facility Maintenance
- Check fan blades for cracks and wear
- Check compressors for oil leakage
- Freon levels
- Check evaporators for ice build up
- Check electrical panels
- Check head pressure
- Check that suitable thermostat settings are being maintained
Monthly Facility Maintenance
- Ensure condenser coil fins are clean
- Check that evaporator and unit cooler fins are clean
- Ensure reverse blower is working properly
- Ensure proper full load cooling
- Ensure refrigerant is in good condition, and at the proper level
- Check control valves for proper functionality
- Check that defrosting functions are working properly
- Check that evaporators are working properly
- Calibrate cold room temperatures
- Clean the evaporator casing and blower fans
- Perform a comprehensive function test for the system to check for abnormalities
Annual Facility Maintenance
- Perform a chemical wash on the heat ex-changer
A critical part of cold storage facility maintenance is focused on the doors. If doors are not maintained at optimum conditions loss of refrigeration will be huge. This means the cooling equipment will be working constantly which consumes a lot of energy. There are many variations of cold storage room doors including, insulated doors, commercial roll-up doors, hollow metal doors, impact doors, high speed bi-part doors, high speed roll doors, fire rated doors, and strip curtain doors. Using and maintaining the appropriate doors for each area in the facility will prevent excessive operating cost and stress to the cooling system.