The walk-in cooler fan died at the worst possible moment

Last Saturday, right before a 40-cover dinner service, the walk-in fan seized up and the temp climbed to 48 degrees in under an hour. I had to move $800 worth of proteins to a neighbor restaurant's cooler in the middle of prep, which threw off our timing completely. Does anyone have a spare fan motor they keep on hand, or do you all just ride it out until the repair guy shows up?

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the_viola2mo ago

The temp probably climbed faster than you think though. A dying fan doesn't always seize up all at once, sometimes it slows down for days before it finally stops. I started paying attention to how often the compressor kicks on and how long it runs after I got burned once. Now I check the fan blades for dust buildup every couple weeks since that's what killed mine the first time. Still, moving the proteins was the right call, nobody wants to serve chicken that's been sitting at 48 degrees for an hour.

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the_robin2mo ago

Yeah but like, @the_viola, has that dust check ever actually caught a fan failing before it died?

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