Who maintenance contracts are for
Any business whose trade stops when the refrigeration stops. Most of our contracts are with:
- Restaurants, cafes, hotels and caterers with a walk-in fridge and freezer behind the kitchen.
- Supermarkets and convenience stores with runs of multidecks, freezers and a stockroom cold room.
- Butchers and fishmongers whose serve over counters and meat rooms must hold 0 to +2 °C every day.
- Bakeries and patisseries with cake displays, dough retarders and freezers.
- Cash and carry warehouses, food producers and distribution sites with industrial cold rooms and cold stores.
- Pharmacies and clinics that need temperature records as well as working equipment.
What a maintenance visit includes
- Cleaning the condenser and evaporator coils, fan blades and guards. A dirty condenser is the most common reason a cold room runs hot and uses too much electricity.
- Checking refrigerant pressures and superheat, and testing for leaks with a record kept where the F-Gas Regulations require one.
- Inspecting door seals, hinges, closers and door and frame heaters, and adjusting or replacing seals that have gone hard.
- Checking the defrost cycle, heaters and drain, so evaporators do not ice up between visits.
- Calibrating the controller and temperature probes against a reference thermometer, and checking alarms.
- Checking fans, contactors, wiring and the electrical supply, and tightening connections.
- A written report after every visit: what was checked, what was found and what we recommend, with photos where useful.
Why maintain a cold room
Three reasons, and all of them are about money. First, stock: a cold room that fails on a Friday night can cost more in lost food than a year of servicing. Second, energy: clean coils, a tight door and a correctly charged system mean the compressor runs less, and refrigeration is often the largest share of a food business's electricity bill. Third, life: the compressor is the most expensive part of the system, and almost every compressor failure starts with a small fault that a service visit would have caught.
F-Gas leak checks and records
Under the UK F-Gas Regulations, equipment with a refrigerant charge of 5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent or more must be leak checked at least once a year, 50 tonnes or more every six months, and 500 tonnes or more every three months, with the interval doubled where a fixed leak detection system is fitted. The checks must be carried out by certified engineers and the records kept for five years. Most walk-in cold rooms fall under the first threshold and most supermarket remote systems under the second. We work out the interval for your equipment, carry out the checks as part of the visits and give you the records the regulations ask you to keep.
What is in an Alaska Cold maintenance contract
- Planned visits at least once a year, usually two to four, set by the equipment, its refrigerant charge and how hard it works.
- Priority response for emergency call-outs, ahead of non-contract customers.
- A written service report and F-Gas record after each visit, and reminders when the next one is due.
- One contact and one report format for every site if you have more than one.
Maintenance for industrial cold rooms and cold stores
Industrial cold rooms, freezer rooms and cold stores have more to go wrong: several evaporators, long pipe runs, remote condensing units and racking that makes access harder. We schedule these visits out of hours or around deliveries, check every evaporator and defrost circuit, and report per room so the site manager can see trends. Multi-site operators get the same engineers and the same report wherever the site is.
Lead times
You get a response to an enquiry within one working hour during business hours. For a new contract we start with a survey and a first service visit, and set the visit calendar from there. If you have a fault now rather than a service due, use the 24/7 repair line.
Service engineers for London and the rest of the UK
We are based at 167-169 Great Portland Street in central London and service equipment across Greater London, Essex, Kent, Surrey and Hertfordshire, with multi-site contracts across the UK. See our London page or the full list of areas we cover.
Why choose Alaska Cold for maintenance
- The engineers who service your equipment are the engineers who install and repair it, so nothing is lost between visits and call-outs.
- A written report after every visit, not a signature on a job sheet.
- F-Gas leak checks and records handled for you.
- 24/7 emergency line and priority response for contract customers.
- Honest advice on when equipment is nearing the end of its life, so replacement is planned rather than forced.
Want a price for a contract? Tell us what equipment you have and we will call you back. Between visits, your team should check door seals and condenser airflow monthly and keep a daily temperature log.