Ice Machine Repair Scotsman; ALL Models!

Ice Maker for Business Use:

Ice Maker produce ice and ice is considered food, FDA has created regulations to enforce in business that manipulate food. Health Departments is a Government institution that applies the regulations created by FDA to protect the consumer’s health. Health Department inspectors is the person in charge to follow up all type of business related with food, in order to verify and apply the FDA regulations to business and warranty a healthy products in Restaurants, Health Clinic, Hotel, Convenience Stores and any other business related with food. Inspector make periodical visit to business locations to certify if business is in compliances with FDA regulations; such as: cleaning and sanitations to their facilities and equipments, those equipments include Ice Makers. The best way to keep far away the Health Department Inspector from Ice Machine is maintaining a good cleaning plan performed regularly to the Ice Maker for business.

Ice Maker for Personal Use:

Ice Maker will produce a clean and healthy product if the ice machine owner implements a regular PM. A couple differences between Ice Maker for Personal Use vs. Ice Maker for Business Use are:

Even the ice machine is for personal use, it does not mean the residential owner is free of the water minerals coming with water from the Water City Supply. The water minerals affect in the same way to the Ice Maker for Personal Use as affect the Ice Maker for Business Use. For personal use ice maker; it is necessary understand the PM is really important action plan and it is the best options to ensure a clean and healthy ice production, reduce the highest repair maintenance cost and extend the ice machine period of life.

Preventive Maintenance is a practice recommended by manufacturer to implement minimum twice a year to keep the equipment in good operational condition, also install a water filter system is recommended to add an additional protection to the water distribution and water drain system of the Ice Machine. The water filter system will reduce the amount of minerals water coming to the equipment. It is true that a PM for an Ice Machine it will cost some money but it is also true that PM can save money when it is compare; PM cost vs. Service Repair cost.

Real life Case of Study!

PM vs. Services Repairs cost because a poor maintenance (Flake or Nuggets Ice Maker).

A Preventive Maintenance plan is implemented twice a year in an Ice Maker, the services for cleaning will cost money because the technician labor, services truck, scale cleaner and sanitizer. The implemented plan will give the opportunity to the tech check the whole equipment and let the owner know the current ice machine conditions. Once revision conclude owner will get a report if any issue was found such water leak, petrified calcium build around the internals parts, oil leak, refrigerant leak. With that report owner will have the chance to take action on time before the equipment stop producing ice, or wait till ice maker stop then place a new Services Call; if the decision for repairs is YES… see the benefits.

• 1- The ice machine down time will be reduced.
• 2- The same cost for PM is providing the diagnostic to take action.
• 3- Repairs cost it will be less compared with a specific Services Repair cost.
• 4- Replace parts at this point will reduce the shipping cost if any
• 5- Reducing the waiting time if parts are not in stock.
• 6- At this point reduce the repair cost vs. repairs cost when get a critical point.

Now, let’s talk about the same ice maker that received a poor PM.

The ice machine has been working properly posterior to the installation date, after certain operation time (3 years) started an internal and small water leak. The water leak never was noticed by the owner because the water leak was really small and located in a very deep area of the equipment, suddenly the ice machine stop making ice. When a services call is placed for a service technician; technician arrived and introducing himself and explaining to the customer, the reason why the tech is at the property, thereafter customer get familiar with the tech and customer let the tech get access to the property to check the equipment. The technician begun the troubleshooting and found the equipment off, in the middle of the troubleshooting steps the tech makes the ice machine run but the tech heard a noise coming from the evaporator, the noise is caused by the auger. Evaporator is saturated of scale and it is forcing the electrical gear motor; the electrical motor gets overheating and it is the cause of triggering the safety switch shutting down the ice maker. Also, the ice maker formed a big surface of petrified calcium around of the transmission gear box because the small water leak coming from the base of auger fallen into the transmisión. Technician noticed some oil around the gear box, and tech concluded; the oil is out caused by water getting in the gear box and ejecting the oil outside of the gearbox.

For sure that ice machine repair cost will be almost like to buy a new ice machine. After explain the equipment condition and posible repairs cost to the customer; customer gets frustrated about the expensive repairs cost. Under this scenario customer can misunderstand or think wrong about technician, believing that technician is trying to take advantage of the situation because customer need the ice machine back to production; when the real situation of this problem could be avoided through a proper PM. The PM is not only a cleaning procedure in the ice maker, it is also a general checking to detect any additional problem or detect any abnormal water leak to fix it before get worse in the equipment. Ice Maker parts for repairs are expensive, giving as result an expensive repair cost.