Compressed air to clean refrigeration units

by Karen Higginbotham
(Winthrop, MA)

we are a small grocery store with a few self-contained refrigerated and freezer units. we clean them as best we can with a small shop vac, but we cannot get into the guts of the units with this. Our refrigeration company comes in sprays it down and within minutes it's regulated. We would like to purchase this unit so we don't always have to wait and loose product.

thank you,
Karen

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Bill says...

Hi Karen. Essentially, as I understand it, you want to know how big an air compressor needed to blow your refrigerant cooling coils and innards clean?

Go to your local big box store and spend $175 or so for the 120 VAC air compressor that's on sale when you get there. Make sure they include the hose, the spray gun tips, and any accessories you need to hook it up.

A 5 or 6 gallon tank size will do.

Blowing dust uses a lot of air, so your compressor will turn on almost as soon as you start blowing dust. This will be normal. If the air pressure flow coming out of the gun gets too low to be effective, release the trigger on the air gun, and wait until the compressor fills up and stops.

If your cleanup takes more than 15 minutes of continuous compressor use, stop every now and again for 1/2 hour to let the compressor cool, unless you are fortunate to find a low cost, continuous duty compressor, then you can clean to your heart's content.

If it were me, I'd buy an oil-less variety, too.

Cheers,

Bill