MaintScope · Cafe
Cafe & coffee shop refrigeration
A cafe runs on a cool room, a couple of display fridges, a rooftop unit and a canopy nobody thinks about until it's a problem. The canopy is usually the overdue one, the cool room is usually the expensive one, and the rooftop unit is usually older than the fitout suggests.
And if it's still running
Know what it's going to cost you — before it costs you
A licenced tech goes through every bit of air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration you've got, and writes down what condition it's in, what needs doing and when, and what it's realistically going to cost you over the next year and the next five. Plain English, one PDF.
When this equipment stops, stock starts dying the same day.
Get a health checkWorked example · Cafe · Erina
What the report actually says
What you’ve got
| Equipment | Age | Condition | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walk-in cool room | ~10 yrs | Watch | Door seals compressing, condenser salt-affected |
| Rooftop package AC 10kW | ~10 yrs | Watch | Fin oxidation starting, past mid-life |
| Display fridges x3 | ~8 yrs | Serviceable | One running warmer than the others |
| Kitchen canopy + duct | Fitout age | Action | Grease build-up beyond a normal service interval |
| Gas instantaneous HWS | Fitout age | Serviceable | Tempering valve never checked |
Needs attention now
- Canopy and duct degrease. This is the one that’s a fire and insurance issue, not just a cleanliness one. Overdue.
- Cool room door seals. Cheap part, and a failing seal makes the compressor run permanently to hold temperature. You’re paying for it in power right now.
- The warm display fridge. Either a dirty condenser or it’s losing gas. Worth knowing which before summer.
Your service year
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Feb / Mar | Rooftop AC service after the summer flog |
| April | Cool room service, seals, gas check |
| Quarterly | Canopy degrease |
| 6-monthly | Suppression hood (AS 1851) |
| Sept / Oct | Rooftop AC again, before summer |
| Annual | Gas CoC, hot water, test & tag, display fridges |
What it costs — next 12 months
| Item | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Cool room service | $500 | $820 |
| Display fridges (3) | $540 | $1,140 |
| Rooftop AC, 2 visits | $680 | $1,150 |
| Canopy degrease, quarterly | $1,920 | $3,360 |
| Suppression hood, 6-monthly | $960 | $1,680 |
| Gas CoC + appliances | $300 | $520 |
| Hot water + tempering valve | $180 | $280 |
| Total | $5,080 | $8,950 |
Plus incidental repairs on gear this age: budget $1,500–4,000.
Coming in five years
- Cool room compressor — $2,800–5,500. At ten years and coastal, this is a when.
- Rooftop AC replacement — $5,500–12,000. Coastal coils run a 5–8 year cycle, not 10–12.
- Refrigerant — if the cool room is R-404A, retrofit is $2,500–4,500 and gas is climbing hard.
Quietly costing you money
That salt-affected condenser and the failing door seals mean the cool room runs longer to hold the same temperature. On a cool room that’s typically $300–700 a year in power you’d stop paying with a service and a set of seals.
What I’d do first
- Canopy degrease — it’s the compliance and insurance one
- Cool room seals and service
- Find out the cool room’s refrigerant before you budget anything else
How it works
$150 to come out. Everything else depends on what's there.
- I come out — $150.I go through the lot: what you've got, how old it is, what condition it's in. Takes an hour or two depending on how much is in the place.
- You get it in writing within 48 hours.One PDF. What's there, what needs doing and when, what it should cost you over the year, and what's coming further out.
- Anything that needs fixing, I quote on what I find.I can't price a service off a website — it depends on the unit, the access and what turns up when it's open. You'll get a real number, not a guess.
- If you'd rather not think about it again, I'll handle it.Scheduled servicing across the year, timed around your trade. No lock-in — plenty of people take the report and go it alone, and that's genuinely fine.