Ellenbrook cool room repairs, start to finish
Sam Celesti repairs walk-in cool rooms and freezer rooms for businesses in Ellenbrook, about 21 km from the Perth CBD in the north east corridor. His customers here include supermarket and grocery tenants, takeaways, cafés, bakeries, childcare kitchens and small food businesses. He has been in commercial refrigeration for over 20 years, is ARCtick licensed (AU55592) and attends every job personally.
Ring first and Sam will talk through the symptoms for free. Once he has looked at the plant, he gives you a fixed quote before touching anything, and failures that put stock at risk are put first, 7 days a week.
Shopping centre tenants and local strips
Ellenbrook's commercial activity is concentrated in its town centre, a large shopping precinct with supermarkets, specialty food stores, a food court, cafés and restaurants. The extension of the rail line to Ellenbrook has added more activity around the station. Smaller neighbourhood centres across the estates hold takeaways, IGA style grocers, bottle shops and medical centres.
Because Ellenbrook is still growing, many businesses there are also expanding their trade faster than their original equipment was planned for. A café that opened with a modest walk-in might now be doing double the covers, or a grocer might have added a deli counter and more frozen lines without upgrading the plant behind them.
That mix means a wide range of equipment. Supermarket tenants rely on walk-in cool rooms and freezer rooms behind the shop floor. Food court and takeaway kitchens use small walk-ins, under bench fridges and chest freezers in tight back of house spaces. Bottle shops run drinks cool rooms that customers walk into. Pharmacies and medical centres keep medication fridges that need steady temperatures.
New buildings, new kinds of faults
Ellenbrook's local angle is that so much of it is new. Older suburbs wear out their plant; Ellenbrook's problems tend to come from how recent fit-outs were specified and installed. Shopfitting jobs run to tight budgets and deadlines, and refrigeration is sometimes the last trade on site.
- Undersized plant. A condensing unit chosen for an average day can struggle in an outer suburb summer, especially on a roof or in a back of house plant area with poor airflow.
- Installation leaks. A poorly made brazed or flared joint can leak slowly for months before the room starts losing temperature.
- Controller settings. Electronic controllers left at factory defaults may defrost too often, too rarely or at the busiest time of day.
- Building movement. As new slabs and walls settle, cool room doors can drop and stop sealing.
Newer systems also use different refrigerants and electronics from those of 15 years ago, so the repair needs a technician who keeps up with current equipment. Sam does. If the room was never right from day one, he can tell you whether it needs a repair, a change of settings or a bigger unit, and our cool room installation page covers replacement options.
Steps to take while you wait
- Keep the cool room door closed and tape a note on it so staff do not keep checking inside.
- Look at the controller display and take a photo of the temperature and any alarm. On newer controllers this can tell Sam a lot before he arrives.
- Shift potentially hazardous food into working fridges or freezers and record the time. If it has been between 5°C and 60°C for under 2 hours it can be refrigerated, for 2 to 4 hours it should be used immediately, and after 4 hours it must go.
For the fridges and freezers on your shop floor, see commercial fridge repairs. For the full picture, visit walk-in cool room repairs in Perth.
