Faults. Yes, there’s no getting away from them; however, you can reduce how often they occur. Sometimes it can be difficult to identify issues that arise in your cellar’s cooling systems, and that’s why we’ve decided to list some common problems and fixes for them.

Blocking Grills

In order to keep your business running smoothly, it’s vital that you maintain your cellar
cooling system.

You should regularly clean the grills on your cooling system and make sure that none of your stock is blocking them, as this can cause your system to overheat. This will increase the cost of operating your equipment, which can be up to 40% annually.

Since operating costs typically run more than £1,500 a year, keeping your unit in good condition could save you up to £800 a year.

Regularly Check The Temperature

We suggest that you regularly check your cellar’s temperature. Using a thermometer, make sure that the temperature is set between 11°C and 13°C.

Maintaining this temperature could significantly reduce your cellar energy costs as overcooling the cellar by 1°C could increase your costs by up to 10%.

Keeping Your Unit On

The cellar cooling system should be switched on at all times, and the cellar fans should run continuously. Some people switch off the system when they are working in the cellar as it does tend to be noisy and pushes out cold air, but staff don’t always remember to switch it back on, which results in the temperature increasing.

You should also make sure that your cellar doors aren’t being left open, as this will let warm air enter and cold air escape (above ground cellars will benefit from strip curtains) and could also cause excess frost on the evaporator that the defrost mechanism cannot cope with. A manual defrost may be required which involves switching off for 24 hours.

Remember not to switch off your unit at night as if the cellar is cold enough it will switch itself off, as required.

General Advice

There are also a number of things generally that you can do to ensure the efficient running of your cooling system:

Replace standard tungsten bulbs with LED or fluorescent strip lighting. Turn off lighting whenever you can to avoid excess heat production.
Regularly clean evaporators and heat rejection coils to allow free airflow – that way they’ll run more economically.
You need to ensure that your equipment is properly maintained (most units require a check twice a year) so that it operates efficiently. If your equipment is not maintained properly it will need to run for longer periods of time, which will cost you more money and could potentially break down causing disruption to your business.
Put any heat-producing equipment such as line python coolers for beer and soft drinks, cooling cabinets and icemakers outside the cellar in a well-ventilated area.
If heating pipes have to pass through cellars, pipes & fittings should all be insulated and draught stripping applied in places where pipes pass through walls.
Beer Cellar doors and hatches should also be draught-proofed and insulated. Access doors should be self-closing and shut immediately after deliveries.

Support Is Available

We hope informing you of these issues will help you determine where your cellar cooling is facing problems.

If you are still facing issues after trying some of the fixes we have provided, or if your warranty has expired, then you can give our professional team of engineers a call, and we’ll be happy to help you.

Take our Air Conditioning or Commercial Refrigeration Healthcheck to see how healthy your equipment is, and to see if it’s due a maintenance check.