Preventative maintenance

The arithmetic

An emergency call-out is $300 before any parts. A failed walk-in can also cost you the stock inside it and, if the temperature drifts, put you out of compliance with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — FDA Food Code requirement to hold cold food at 41 °F or below.

Scheduled maintenance is the cheaper side of that trade. It does not eliminate breakdowns — nothing does — but it moves a meaningful share of them from “mid-service emergency” to “planned visit on a Tuesday morning”.

What a programme typically covers

• Refrigeration: temperatures verified, condensers cleaned, seals and gaskets checked, drains cleared
• Cooking line: burners, thermostats and safety devices checked and calibrated
• Warewashing: wash and rinse temperatures verified, jets and filters cleared, dosing checked
• Laundry: drum and bearing condition, and full vent line cleaning
• Ice machines: cleaned and sanitised on a defined interval
• A written record of what was checked and what was found

How programmes are set

There is no single package, because a 40-cover bistro and a laundromat with twenty machines have nothing in common except the invoice format. We walk the site, list the equipment, agree an interval per item and quote it. Frequency is driven by what the equipment does, not by a tier name.

Most sites that sign up have just paid for an emergency repair they would rather not repeat.