Why servicing your air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration systems regularly is vital for your systems durability.
Please take the time to educate yourself, in the importance of regular servicing of your equipment. We promise you will not regret that you have.
Two big factors that influence your equipment’s durability are hygiene and friction.
A machine has wear and tear. From the first time this equipment is started up, to the time the machine has run its course, it is set on a virtual timer. The Timer is influenced by the machines conditions in which it is running in. These conditions are improved by continuous routine servicing of the equipment, which increases the time the machine has until it breaks down. To properly understand the importance of servicing your equipment regularly, it is important to understand how your system works.
A basic refrigeration system starts with a compressor, which sucks cool refrigeration vapour in and compresses it to change its state to a hot compressed refrigeration vapour. The compressor has oil in it to aid with the cooling of its moving parts which also reduces the friction inside the compressor. A compressor fail often happens due to electrical surges, spikes or due to a mechanical breakdown. Your oil loses its viscosity (ability to cool the compressor properly) after some time and needs to be replaced. This is monitored by each service.
From the compressor the hot vapour high pressure refrigerant is moved to the condenser. The condenser is responsible to cool the hot and high pressured refrigerant vapour and change its state to a warm liquid refrigerant. The state of the condenser is vital to this transaction. Weather conditions and its surrounding, influence the condensers productivity and how often it clogs up, which reduces its efficiency. A condenser is sized according to where and what it needs to operate on. It also often has a fan or two to aid in the condensation process. The weather often blows salts with dust into the condenser, which corrodes and reduces its surface area which furthermore reduces its efficiency. The condenser is dependent on a media, often air to blow over it, to perform proper heat exchange. Heat exchange is reduced by corrosion or a clogged up condenser.
With an inefficient condenser, the refrigerant flow is continued as a hot, high pressured gas, which cause flash gas that results in improper cooling and longer running hours of your cabinets.
Continuing with the refrigerant cycle with supposedly warm liquid refrigerant is pumped towards your cooling cabinet, (if the condenser is working properly,) where it is met by the expansion valve. The expansion valve works much like in a motor vehicle the carburetor or fuel injection. This valve allows the refrigerant liquid to be pushed and instantly explode into a bigger lower pressured area ( the evaporator) allowing the energetic refrigerant molecules to move around more freely, reducing its pressure and with it, its temperature. The evaporator works much like the condenser. It depends on a media, (often air) to flow over the outside of its coil, for its heat exchange to take place. Here the difference is the warm air from the cooling cabinet, which gets cooled by the evaporator and in turn warms up the refrigerant inside the evaporator, changing its state to a cool gas refrigerant, which is sucked back to the compressor to restart its cycle. Evaporators can also get clogged up with cabinet product waist, papers or blocked drains. A clogged evaporator coil, would also lose its efficiency which will not be able to fully change the refrigerant state to a vapour, which would force liquid to flow back into the compressor and cause it to break down.
Lots of these factors mentioned in this explanation and more, are picked up by routine servicing and helps the system to operate correctly, with more efficiency, with lower operating pressures, temperatures and running costs. Servicing pinpoints problems in a system and allows these problems to be rectified, (these are the costs often after a service has been done.) before they cause costly break downs and down time in your day to day operations which offers more convenience and greater savings.
To my recommendation. Minor servicing on a continuously operating plant should be done on a monthly to a two month routine basis. A Major service can be done twice to three times annually. Jörg Güther/Delta Cooling services