You go to grab the milk for a coffee order and it doesn’t pour properly. Or the prep salad is crunchy and the leftover pasta is now solid. When a commercial fridge starts freezing food, it is a massive pain. It ruins expensive stock, messes up your food safety logs, and drives up your electric bills.
We get calls about this a lot at PAR Services from cafés, delis, restaurants, and pubs. Commercial units run much harder than home fridges, so parts wear out faster and the problems get worse quickly. Usually it is just one of a few common issues. You can check some of these yourself in five minutes. Others need an engineer. Here is what to look for:
Check the temperature dial first
Look at the thermostat dial before you do anything else. On older commercial fridges it is just a dial numbered 1 to 5 or 1 to 7. A lot of people do not know that higher numbers mean colder temperatures.
It is easy to knock the dial with your elbow or a crate when you rush to restock during a busy service. Most catering fridges need to run between 1°C and 4°C. If you have a digital display, check if someone changed the set point by mistake. If it is a dial, buy a cheap fridge thermometer to see what is actually happening. Turn the dial down, wait a day, and see if it stops freezing things.
Stock pushed against the back wall
This happens all the time in busy kitchens. The cold air comes out of the back panel or internal vents of your fridge. When chefs pack boxes, salad bags, or gastro pans right up against that back wall, the air cannot flow. The food right at the back will freeze solid while the food at the front might get too warm.
This is not even a mechanical fault. It is just how the fridge is loaded. Move your stock a few centimetres away from the back wall and vents so the air can circulate. It sounds simple but it stops the freezing.
A broken thermostat
If your settings are fine but the fridge is still freezing everything, the thermostat might be broken. The thermostat tells the commercial fridge when to cool down and when to turn off.
When it breaks, it can get stuck on. It tells the cooling system to keep running even when the inside is already below zero. You need a multimeter to test this properly. If you checked the settings and it still freezes, you probably need a new thermostat. It is a simple part to change but you need an engineer to fit it.
The door seal is split
A bad door gasket lets warm air inside, so you would think the fridge gets warm. But the fridge actually panics because of the warm kitchen air rushing in. The compressor works double time to fix it and ends up freezing everything inside.
The extra moisture from a busy kitchen also creates heavy ice on the evaporator coils, which blocks the airflow. Check the rubber seal for cracks, grease, or gaps. Shut a piece of paper in the door and pull it. If it slides out with no resistance, the seal needs to be replaced. Clean it with soapy water or get it replaced if it is torn.
A bad thermistor or probe
Modern commercial fridges use electronic sensors called thermistors or probes. It reads the air temperature and tells the control board when to stop cooling. If the probe glitches, it tells the board the fridge is warm when it is actually freezing. The system keeps pumping in cold air and ruins your veg. You cannot see this problem with your eyes, so an engineer has to test the resistance with tools.
The compressor runs non-stop
Listen to your fridge during a quiet hour. It should hum for a bit, then turn off, then hum again later. If that hum never stops, the compressor is stuck on. Since it never takes a break, the temperature keeps dropping. This destroys your stock and will burn out an expensive compressor motor quickly, so you need to get it looked at before the whole fridge dies.
Get an engineer out if your fridge is freezing before you lose stock
A home fridge freezing your milk is annoying but a commercial fridge freezing your stock costs you real money. You get instant food waste and unhappy customers. Your temperature logs will also look bad to environmental health officers during an inspection.
PAR Services has repaired commercial refrigeration across Yorkshire for over 30 years. We fix prep fridges, deli counters, bottle coolers, and walk-in cold rooms. We know downtime costs you money, so we carry common parts and do emergency callouts. If your fridge is still freezing after the basic checks, call us on 01924 872109 or use our contact form and we will get an engineer out.
