Danvers · Outdoor kitchens
Outdoor refrigeration in North Shore air
An outdoor refrigerator on the North Shore is pulling salt-laden air through a fine metal coil every hour it runs, and doing it beside a grill. That combination is harder on an appliance than anything indoors.
- We work
- Outdoor refrigeration
- We do not
- The grill
- Local factor
- Marine air
Two fouling agents at once
Salt corrodes; grease sticks. On their own each is manageable. Together they produce a deposit on the condenser fins that is neither dust nor film but something closer to a coating, and it will not shift with a brush or a blast of air. Left in place it insulates the coil, and the appliance responds by running longer until the first genuinely hot week defeats it.
The same deposit gets into the fan motor and the fastener heads, which is why an outdoor unit that has never been cleaned properly is often mechanically stiff as well as thermally compromised.
What keeps one alive
Not much, but it has to actually happen. A proper coil clean at the end of each season, the fan checked and its draw measured, drains cleared, and the water isolated and drained before the first hard freeze. Outdoor units that get that treatment last a long time. Ones that do not tend to be replaced twice in the time the first should have run.
The end-of-season list
- Condenser degreased and de-salted properly, not just brushed
- Condenser fan draw measured, since salt attacks the bearings first
- Door seal and hinge, which stiffen in marine air
- Drain path cleared and checked for a route that cannot freeze
- Supply line to any ice maker shut off, drained and left open
Grill repairs of any kind are outside what this bench does. Outdoor refrigeration and outdoor ice are the work.
Where to go from here
Outdoor kitchens elsewhere
Coastal work
How the work is arranged
Reviews
From coastal and outdoor work
4.9out of 5from 1,081 reviews
5 out of 5
The basement cabinet climbed steadily through the August humidity and simply never came back down again. Its condenser was matted with lint blowing off the laundry side of the room. He cleaned it out and moved the dryer hose well clear of the intake.
Adele F. · Sudbury
5 out of 5
Rear extension kitchen, panel ready door catching the cabinet stile so it never quite shut. The hinge cams had worn. New hardware, careful shimming, and the alarm that kept waking us stopped that night.
Grant P. · Needham
5 out of 5
The supply line had been dripping behind the cabinet long enough to swell the toe kick before anyone noticed. He renewed the line and the compression fitting, dried everything out, and was honest that the joinery damage was a job for somebody else and not for him.
Hugh L. · Newton Lower Falls
Booking
Book the end-of-season clean
Model and serial from the plate inside the fresh-food door, and when it started. That is usually enough for a straight answer on the phone.
Flat $95 service call · 8:00 am – 8:00 pm, seven days · line answered 24/7