Emergency Service:
Breakdowns happen. Being prepared for them can be the difference between not having any disruption to your restaurants operation, or being down for a day or even a week. The two most important things when dealing with a system breakdown is knowing who to call and having the access to all necessary parts. We advise having 2 service companies on file for emergencies. We also strongly recommend that if the company claims to stock parts, they physically show you what they regularly carry on their trucks and what they themselves have access to at their shop (not the supply house).
We Stock Parts on our trucks: (Belts, bearings, motors, pulleys, etc).
If you have an emergency we are available 24/7 in order to help assist in getting a technician out to your area. Call us anytime: 1-800-524-7352.
As a restaurant owner, you have the choice to stock certain parts onsite yourself or not in the event of an emergency. This comes down to how much confidence you have in your service company, where you are located, and what the kitchen ventilation system is being used for. If it was my system and I was operating a restaurant that’s generating 10 to 20 thousand dollars a day, I would want to have at the very least, belts and a spare motor for any exhaust fan being used to exhaust any critical cooking appliances (EX: Charbroiler.) If you would like to be pro-active, find out which parts are critical to your system and purchase
Troubleshooting:
It’s relatively easy to find a veteran service technician in the industry who has 30 years’ experience and knows everything about how the “old” systems worked over that time, but is reluctant to take the time to learn the new technology associated with the newest systems in the marketplace. It’s relatively easy to find a service technician who has been freshly trained on the current technology in the industry. It’s extremely rare to find a service technician who knows about how the old systems work, is completely up to date on the current systems, and who has the passion and energy to learn about the future technology. This is the mindset that we at Kitchen Air Inc want for our technicians.
Our strength is in our knowledge of systems, our integrity, and service. We do whatever it takes to get it done. It’s pretty simple: When you are giving the task of performing preventative service on a system regularly, it is in your best interest that it has been designed correctly, installed adequately, so right out the gate you have a good chance of maintaining it correctly. If you ask any service tech, the systems that they hate working on the most are the ones that they can’t access properly, don’t have safety shut-off disconnects at the fan units, and/or barely exhaust enough air when everything is freshly serviced. These problems are the direct result of a poorly designed or installed system. Being involved with design and service, we at Kitchen Air Inc focus on the big picture. We want to ensure that any system we design functions at the time of install, and can be serviced safely and properly once the restaurant is in operation.
We can fix and repair any kitchen ventilation system regardless of manufacturer in the industry. The reason being is that we know how to read electrical schematics and many of the parts are interchangeable (motors, belts, bearings, etc).
The most important advice we can give regarding preventing breakdowns is to report problems and concerns as they happen. Many major mechanical problems and costly repairs can be prevented if identified and more importantly communicated at the early stage of development. For Example: A cleaning rag gets sucked into the wheel of an exhaust fan from the duct or hood. This results in the wheel being out of balance and causes excessive vibration in the fan. If this vibration/noise is noticed the first day and brought up by an employee, the rag is simply removed from the unit and there is minimal to no damage. If unnoticed or left unreported for a week, just the bearings may fail, resulting in a medium level service-call. If left for over a week, in addition to the bearings; the shaft, wheel assembly, and or motor could be compromised, resulting in replacement of these components and or the entire unit. This is a major service call that is expensive, with the possibility of down time of the restaurant, which is really expensive.
The bottom line is Do not ignore problems even if they seem minor. There are hundreds of similar scenarios that we have come across and more often than not, there is one employee onsite that was aware of the root cause of the problem weeks prior. Whether it is noticing a broken fan switch, smoke rollout, a new noise, a negative draft at the front door, keep your eyes and ears open. Training of the kitchen staff to identify and report issues creates a powerful extension of your service company to solve issues in between regularly scheduled maintenance visits. The reporting of concerns with the operation of the equipment or integrity of the equipment is also a two-way street. Service technicians should also be reporting issues to owners that are uncovered during regularly scheduled service visits.