Commercial Refrigeration
Under the FDA Food Code, the ice that goes in your drinks is food. Gary Sharpe, the licensed contractor who owns Langston’s, repairs, descales and sanitizes commercial ice machines and quotes every repair in writing.
At a glance
Why this happens in Florida
Every pound of ice starts as water that has to be cooled and frozen. An air-cooled ice machine in a hot kitchen or storage room rejects that heat into warm air, and a dirty condenser can keep it from making ice at all.
Minerals in the water leave scale on the evaporator plate and water parts. Scale slows freezing and makes cubes stick at harvest, so the machine makes less ice and works harder doing it.
Warm, humid rooms also feed slime and mold in the water trough and bin. Kitchens with flour or yeast in the air, such as bakeries and pizzerias, often need cleaning more often.
What we check
A water filter catches sediment and helps slow scale, but a clogged one starves the machine of water and leads to thin, short cubes. Change it on the filter maker’s schedule, not only when the ice looks wrong.
A cleaning visit follows the procedure in your machine’s manual. We remove scale with an approved ice machine cleaner, sanitize the water and food zones, clean the bin and replace the water filter if it is due.
Most manufacturers call for cleaning and sanitizing at least every six months, and more often in dusty or flour-heavy kitchens. Adding ice machines to a quarterly maintenance plan keeps that on schedule.
How the job runs
Call (904) 467-1100 or book online, Monday through Saturday, 8 AM to 8 PM. Have the machine’s model number handy and tell us what the ice looks like.
The commercial diagnostic is $149. Gary times the cycles, checks water and refrigeration, and shows you what is slowing production.
You get a written quote before any work starts. Approve a repair over $300 and the $149 diagnostic is waived.
Related work
Straight answers
Most manufacturers call for at least every six months. Machines in kitchens with flour, yeast or heavy dust in the air often need it more often.
Low water flow from scale, a clogged filter or a weak pump is a common cause. A refrigeration problem can do the same, so we check both before quoting a repair.
Scale can make ice stick to the evaporator, and a dirty or failed ice thickness sensor, hot gas valve or harvest assist can stop the cycle. Cleaning fixes some harvest problems and a parts repair fixes the rest.
Commercial ice machines are part of our commercial refrigeration service. Call (904) 467-1100 with the make and model number and we will confirm before we schedule.
Langston’s Heating & Air Conditioning · Licensed CMC1251311 · Mon–Sat 8 AM–8 PM
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