Restaurant cooking elements melted

[wirenut1980]

Hello, I am investigating a franchised restaurant that is having problems with some cooking and cleaning equipment, as well as a walk in freezer not shutting down automatically when a temperature setpoint is reached. This results in melting coils in ovens and in a dishwasher, and also a freezer that is way too cold and is causing compressor lines to freeze and fail.

The building is about 6 years old and normally I would chalk this one up to failure of controls, but with so many failed for different equipment, it gives me pause and would like to investigate further.

Has anyone ever run into this problem? There have been a number of outages from the utility in the past few weeks. I am going to visit there this afternoon to look at what they have and ask some more questions. If there have been no repeat failures, I think I will chalk this one up to conntrol equipment failures.:-?

 

[BryanMD]

Hello, I am investigating a franchised restaurant that is having problems with some cooking and cleaning equipment, as well as a walk in freezer not shutting down automatically when a temperature setpoint is reached. This results in melting coils in ovens and in a dishwasher, and also a freezer that is way too cold and is causing compressor lines to freeze and fail.

The building is about 6 years old and normally I would chalk this one up to failure of controls, but with so many failed for different equipment, it gives me pause and would like to investigate further.

As you observed, if the problem were limited to just one appliance it would be different; but several implies something else. The most obvious 'something else' is the mechanic who has been working on the equipment there; or NOT working there.

A LOT of franchise operations have a service & repair manual that wants the manager to do basic repair work. Too often it ends up being done by one of the employees who is 'handy'. Also many 'chefs' have learned a few things over the years; often very very wrong things.

Insist on seeing ALL invoices for service for the whole six years. If they aren't on site ask for the name(s) of the companies who have been servicing the place. Look for "CFESA" imprinted on the invoice. Visit the service company shops to see their copies of the service ticket and invoices.

 

[billsnuff]

JMSO...wondering if one appliance failed first, say stove, overheated a circuit, causing loose connection on neutral?, resulting in high voltage causing the other failures. (ignoring the utility issue)

 

[wirenut1980]

Thanks for the replies. I will check to see if any service work was ever done on the affected equipment. I was so focused on it being a controls failure that I did not even think of it being just a failure of the equipment.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Bryan,

Visit the service company shops to see their copies of the service ticket and invoices.

Why would they show you that information? I'd tell you to hit the road if you came to me asking for that.

 

[nakulak]

Bryan,

Why would they show you that information? I'd tell you to hit the road if you came to me asking for that.

If a company I had been hiring to do service work on my equipment told me to hit the road when I asked for copies of invoices, I would find someone else to do the work in the future.

 

[ptonsparky]

If a company I had been hiring to do service work on my equipment told me to hit the road when I asked for copies of invoices, I would find someone else to do the work in the future.

Sounds like they already have.

 

[mdshunk]

Nothing related to the electric supply can cause a temperature control (generally mechanical) in restaurant equipment to intermittently not cycle the element or compressor or whatever off when it's supposed to. I'd rather think that much or all of this equipment was improperly installed or improperly commissioned or both.

 

[cadpoint]

Hello, I am investigating a franchised restaurant that is having problems with .....:-?

Your trying to figure out if your want to own this one ...

 

[Special K]

For one you have several problems that have different reasons they failed. I can't see a continuous duty heating element melting. However using the wrong connectors on the appliance will cause an overheat problem resulting in connection failure. I have seen this on equipment new from the factory with the wrong crimps applied. This is not a control failure. The freezer is a control problem. If you leave a cooler door open too long this is exactly what happens.If the restaurant needed a clydesdale and they bought a shetland pony instead, this also happens a lot. It is more a refrigeration sizing problem than anything. Do not assume they are all related. Ask how long they have been experiencing these problems and if anybody else has looked at them. If they have, ask to see their service reports. Tell them it will aid you in determining what is causing the failures. I would also recommend putting a chart recorder on the line for at least a week.

 

[dbuckley]

Just to amplify - you have several faults here, analyse them one as a time, and dont be tempted to think there is an "everything" problem unless you have some evidence that seriously suggests a common cause.

 

[SegDog]

gum-shoe work

gum-shoe work

Hello,

A little detective work goes a long way to protect you. I've witnessed sabotage, stupidity or both.

I mentioned in another post about getting a job to replace equipment. After replacing said equipment and detecting a problem, I was then told that the previous piece was throwing-flames. A contractor was there a week before and just lifted the wires that were in his way and doubled them under the next breaker (a high-leg).

Hope you find it without too much headache.

 

[wirenut1980]

Hey all, thanks for the replies. After talking with the staff who witnessed the events, here is what I learned:

The failures happened not all at once, but over a period of about 2 months. There was no other indication of something happening on the supply side, such as lights flickering, other damage or equipment shutdowns at the restaurant or at other businesses in the area when they had the failures. There have been no repeat failures of anything in the past 6 months. For now, I am going to hang back, and let them tell me if they find anything out from the equipment manufacturer, but I am pretty sure it was not anything on the utility system that caused the failures. If they do sustain more damage in the near future, I will be taking a much closer look at this.

 

[sparkfree]

I realize this might be a last post but have a similiar problem. would recommend to use recording power quality monitor for a couple weeks to check sags and swells on incoming power. our test showed transformer on street was flat topping which means the transformer is over loaded. this could cause controls to burn up not sure why elements failed. hope this helps.

 

[charlie tuna]

i agree with others that these are all separate unrelated problems and business owners are prone to let things linger until they have a handful of problems before reacting. and one of the first things they blame is the power company! i used it like these type calls, because i owned a very expensive power recorder and i would explain to the business owner that we can set this up for a week and monitor his building's incoming power -- of course he would pay for the installation of the data logger and $35.00 a day and the labor to download and send him a report on the monitor's findings. at the same time we would troubleshoot each of these problems as individual problems.

one particular restaurant had electric grills and stove tops and the elements were 480 volt, and when the blew out smoke and fire would scare the you know what out of the chiefs!!! this was a big restaurant and these things were blowing up "WEEKLY"???? the elements were $160. each plus labor and was getting expensive?? finally i contacted the manufacturer. they explained that the problem could be caused by running the cook tops at high temps for long periods of time???? the chiefs standard proceeder was to turn all their stove tops on "HIGH" in the morning and leave them until they closed. if they were cooking something that didn't need much heat, they would just not place the pan directly over the hot plate?? thats the way they were taught!! and taught on gas stoves. this restaurant was two years old -- and thats the design life of their elements if the are operated full time on "HIGH"! we changed all the elements and they were good to go for two years!!!!

 

[augie47]

wirenut, In checking the utility voltage, what range have you found ? and what voltage rating in on the equipment ??
Some of those "outages" might have come from POCO changing some transformers.

 

[wirenut1980]

wirenut, In checking the utility voltage, what range have you found ? and what voltage rating in on the equipment ??
Some of those "outages" might have come from POCO changing some transformers.

The restaurant is served at 208Y/120 V. I'm embarrassed to say I forgot to check the equipment voltage rating. I wonder if it is rated 240 V? I will check that at once.

Average RMS line to neutral measured over 2 days was between 121 V and 125 V.

I know that a couple of outages have been attributed to planned utility outages due to new construction in the area and adding transformers, completing underground loops, etc. I think there was also a dig-in in the area.

I realize this might be a last post but have a similiar problem. would recommend to use recording power quality monitor for a couple weeks to check sags and swells on incoming power. our test showed transformer on street was flat topping which means the transformer is over loaded. this could cause controls to burn up not sure why elements failed. hope this helps.

I always thought that voltage waveform flat topping was due to harmonics and not transformer overloading? And how do sags and swells fail controls? I suppose it is possible if that sag or swell is deep and long enough, but I have never seen them fail components before.

 

[Special K]

The sags and swells spike the control transformers on the equipment, which in turn cause arcing on contacts resulting in premature failure. Generally the electronic controls are much more susceptible to spikes than electro-mechanical ones but it still happens. The freezer could also have a dirty condenser which can cause the same freezing line problems. The heating elements most likely are 230v/460 and could even be wired for the higher voltage. I had problems years ago always around lunch time for weeks. Finally we started to monitor the lines and found out that around lunch time one of our 208 legs dropped to 196v. Called the POCO to complain. They offered to monitor the line for a week but like a miracle the problem disappeared after the call? With out facts it's merely poke and hope.