MaintScope · Small bar
Small bar & craft beer refrigeration
Glycol, cool room, ice machine and underbar fridges — the highest equipment density of any small venue. When the glycol bath drifts you pour foam, and foam is beer you've already paid for going down the drain, every keg, every night.
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 · Small bar · Gosford
What the report actually says
What you’ve got
| Equipment | Age | Condition | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cool room | ~9 yrs | Watch | Condenser needs a clean, seals going |
| Glycol chiller + python | ~9 yrs | Action | Glycol low, bath temperature drifting |
| Ice machine | ~5 yrs | Action | Scaled up, output well down |
| Underbar fridges x4 | ~6 yrs | Serviceable | Two seals marginal |
| Venue split systems x2 | ~9 yrs | Watch | Filters heavily loaded |
Needs attention now
- Glycol system. Low glycol and a drifting bath temperature means warm beer at the tap and foam in the glass. On a Friday night that’s not a maintenance issue, it’s a night’s takings and a room that empties.
- Ice machine scale. Output drops quietly until a busy night when you run out. Descale and service.
- Split filters. A packed venue in summer with loaded filters is how you end up with people drinking outside.
Your service year
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Monthly | Glycol level check, line clean (your staff) |
| Quarterly | Ice machine descale and sanitise |
| April | Full service — cool room, glycol, splits |
| Sept / Oct | Pre-summer service, everything |
What it costs — next 12 months
| Item | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Cool room service, 2 visits | $840 | $1,280 |
| Glycol chiller service | $480 | $900 |
| Ice machine, quarterly descale | $560 | $1,120 |
| Underbar fridges (4) | $600 | $1,120 |
| Split systems (2), 2 visits | $720 | $1,120 |
| Total | $3,200 | $5,540 |
Coming in five years
- Glycol chiller — $6,000–14,000
- Cool room compressor — $2,800–5,500
- Ice machine — $4,000–9,000
- Split replacement — $5,000–9,000 for the pair
Quietly costing you money
Foam is spillage. A poorly chilled line pours 10–20% waste on every keg, every night. That’s beer you bought and poured down the drain, and it’s the cheapest problem on this list to fix.
What I’d do first
- Glycol system — level, bath temp, line balance
- Descale the ice machine and put it on a quarterly cycle
- Filters in both splits before summer
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.