Why local refrigeration support matters

Picture a pub kitchen on a Thursday morning in December. The cool room was at 3 degrees when the chef locked up. Now it reads 9, the fans are running, the condensing unit outside is silent and there is a function for sixty booked in for Saturday. The question is not really what has broken. The question is how soon someone who knows what they are doing can be standing in front of it.

That is the whole case for local refrigeration support, and it is worth spelling out, because it is easy to forget until the morning you need it.

Distance is time, and time is stock

Daylesford to the middle of Melbourne is a long drive, and it is longer in holiday traffic. A business that sends a van up the highway is not being careless if it can't come today. It is just far away, and a day's travel for one job is hard to justify.

We are based in Hepburn, with our workshop at 4b Mink Street in Daylesford, and we have been servicing Central Victoria since 2013. Our work is spread across 26 towns, from Castlemaine and Kyneton to Creswick, Trentham, Woodend and Maldon. When we are booking a job in Glenlyon, there is a good chance we are already working nearby that week.

That does not mean we can be everywhere at once, and we would rather be straight about it. We work Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 4:30pm. What being local changes is how quickly we can fit a job in during those hours, and how much we already know when we arrive.

The site is already on our books

We have more than 2,800 sites on our books and more than 2,200 customers. About 700 of those sites are in Daylesford alone. For a lot of the cool rooms, display cabinets and bar fridges around the district, we have been there before.

That matters more than it sounds. When you ring, we can often look up what the system is, when it was last serviced, what was done and what we said was likely to need attention next. The tech who turns up has a fair idea what they are walking into, which means fewer surprises and less time on site working out the basics.

It also means patterns are easier to spot. A cool room that ices up every autumn, or a bar fridge that has had the same fan fail twice, tells a story. Someone who only ever sees one visit does not get to read it.

The district is its own climate

The ranges around Daylesford, Trentham and Hepburn run cold for a long stretch of the year, and summers still bring hot spells. Equipment up here deals with both. Condensers sit outside through frosts and leaf fall, then have to throw out heat on a scorching afternoon in January with the kitchen door propped open.

We see what that does to equipment every year, across hundreds of sites. Knowing which kitchens back onto a hot laneway, which condensers sit under a gum tree and which cellars stay cool helps us give advice that suits the actual building rather than a brochure.

One business for the cold and the comfort

A lot of the hospitality businesses we look after have more than refrigeration to think about. The dining room has split systems or ducted air conditioning, the accommodation has its own heating and cooling, and the hot water might be a heat pump. We do all of that, so one call covers the cool room, the beer system and the air conditioner in the bar. You can read more on our commercial work and refrigeration pages.

What we do when you call

When something has gone wrong, we book you into a window on a set day and tell you who is coming. Repairs are charged as a service call: the call-out, the time on site and any parts. We hold an ARCtick refrigerant handling licence, do our own licensed electrical work and are fully insured.

Before you ring, it helps to have a few things ready:

• what the display or thermometer reads, and roughly when it started climbing
• whether the fans inside are running and whether the unit outside is running
• any noises, water on the floor or ice on the coil
• what is in the room, and whether you have somewhere to move it

If you are not sure what to look at, our guide on what to check when a cool room warms up walks through the safe checks in order.

Better still, don't wait for it

The most useful thing a local business can offer is not a fast response to a breakdown. It is fewer breakdowns. Regular servicing catches worn seals, dirty condensers and tired fans while they are still small jobs, and booking it before summer means it happens on a quiet morning rather than in the middle of service. We have written more about that in planned maintenance for hospitality.

If you run a kitchen, café, pub or guesthouse anywhere in our patch, including Daylesford, and would like us to have your equipment on our books before you need us, get in touch or ring 0417 734 206.