*The original article was updated on 24 January 2025
It’s getting chilly here so there’s more stand down time. We want to give you tips for your unit’s pre-winter check, so you can avoid unexpected and unpleasant surprises from them. Read to the end to do your checklist with us, and see a helping document we created for your check!
How do we start the check? 🔍
So our advice is to start inspecting the covers, control box (seals), and belts. Then run your unit for 10-15 minutes each week of its stand down. This is to avoid premature wear in drive components and compressor shaft seals, and to avoid refrigerant leaks.
✅Checking the Covers
We’re starting with the panels of your units! Inspect the exterior body of your refrigeration unit to see if there are damages in the covers.
Damages can lead to water leakages amongst others. If damages did happen, you can replace your panels, for example with these products:
✅Checking the Control Box
Next up, you want to take a look at your control box and see how the seals (for example circled numbers 14 and 17 in the diagram) are performing.
Damages in the seal can lead to leakages as well, and that’s never good for the control box and the overall unit’s performance.
✅Checking the Belts
Belts continuously move to provide the right tension to the unit during up time. This can cause some wear and tear. Faulty belts lead to lower unit performance or malfunctions. So check if there are any damages to your belt, and if there are, you can replace them before the next up time.
Let's Update the Checklist!
Now as the temperature drops more in the middle of the winter, we updated the down time checklist with one more task. This task is to check the battery charge level of your unit.
✅Checking the Battery
- The stand down time can decrease your unit's battery charge.
- Perform the check of the unit's battery charge level with a tester, or through the computer.
Learnings: Don't be like one of our colleagues, who didn't charge her phone fully, and had to wait a long time for the bus in the cold, resulting in her phone dying before she reached home.. 🥶
So, it's better to be better prepared with the updated Winter/Stand-down Checklist printed out while you inspect your units. You can download the updated Stand-down checklist document below😁👍
Winter/Stand-down Checklist:
Of course, this is based on our check advice, but if you have any ideas on additional checks routine, let us know and we’ll add them to improve the document. Well that is all for this so far, see you in the next post!👋
