Start here before calling anyone
A few things you can check yourself in under two minutes:
- Power and breakers. A tripped breaker after a surge is common and easy to miss on a busy line.
- Door gaskets. Run your hand around the perimeter while the unit is running and feel for cold air escaping.
- Condenser coils. If they’re visibly coated in grease and dust, that’s almost always part of the problem.
- Water pooling under the unit. A clogged condensate drain line is usually a quick fix, but water sitting under a cooler damages floors fast.
If none of those explain it, you’re looking at something internal.
The temperature recovery test
Open the door for about 30 seconds, then watch how long the unit takes to pull back down to setpoint. Most commercial refrigeration should recover in under 15 minutes. If yours takes 30 or longer, you’ve got a capacity problem: dirty condenser, refrigerant loss, a failing compressor, or a defrost cycle that isn’t completing.
What typically fails, by unit type
Walk-in coolers and freezers. Low refrigerant from a slow leak (almost always at the evaporator coil connections) and dirty condenser coils are the two most common causes of poor cooling. On freezers, door heater strip failure is the next thing we look for. When those go, ice builds up at the door frame until it won’t seal and the unit runs non-stop trying to compensate.
Reach-ins. Gasket failure and dirty coils cover most calls. After that it’s usually a failing evaporator fan motor or a faulty thermostat or control board.
Pizza prep tables. These run hard in hot kitchens. Condenser fouling from grease and flour is the main culprit. They also tend to lose refrigerant charge more often than walk-ins because the lids are opened constantly throughout service.
Display cases. Anti-sweat heaters control condensation on the glass. When they fail you get fog and water running down the front. Defrost timer problems cause ice buildup on the evaporator and a slow, gradual loss of cooling that can be easy to miss until it’s too late.
What a technician actually does
A tech hooks up manifold gauges and reads the system’s operating pressures, then checks superheat and subcooling. Those numbers show whether the refrigerant charge is off, whether the metering device is failing, or whether the compressor is losing capacity. They’ll also check motor amp draw and test the defrost circuit.
Refrigerant work requires an EPA 608 certification. Electrical diagnosis needs the right equipment and a wiring diagram. If you undercharge a system even slightly, you accelerate compressor wear, so guessing at it costs more in the end.
When to call right away
Any of these means call now: the unit is above 41°F (cooler) or above 0°F (freezer), the compressor is short-cycling on and off every few minutes, you smell refrigerant, or the compressor runs continuously without the temperature dropping.
For anything less urgent, call Adrium Service Solutions and we’ll get you on the schedule fast, often same or next day when we can. We’ll diagnose it and tell you exactly what it needs. Nothing gets repaired without your sign-off first.