For the first episode of Ask Steve!, Tim and Josh of the Wine Cellar Designers Group sat down with lead designer, Steve Pantalemon, to discuss the importance of having regular maintenance in order to avoid costly wine cellar cooling system problems. Keep reading to see the full transcript of the conversation.

Watch the full video by clicking here!

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Episode 1 of Ask Steve: Preventing Wine Cellar Cooling Issues with Regular Maintenance

What Do Customers Ask for When They Call for Help?

TIM: So, Steve you were talking a little awhile ago about the fact that you are now getting loads of calls from all over the US to deal with wine cellar cooling systems. Can you give us a sense of what type of calls you’re getting? When people call, what are they asking for exactly?

STEVE: Most of the customers that call in are looking for a service. Their unit has either blowing hot air or is not working at all. We then dissect it or have discovery questions of — well, when was your last service? And then we come to find out it’s probably two to three years ago which in the end it means, you’ve run out of 134a which is the gas that keeps the unit going.

T: I thought the gas was self-contained. I didn’t think it got used up, like fuel. I thought it was just sort of expanding and contracting.

S: I was talking more about a split-system unit…

T: Right.

What is R134a or Freon?

S: But for a self-contained unit, over the last two weeks or so, we had a lot of people calling, saying their self-contained unit was out. And so, once the unit is out, for self-contained unit, there’s nothing to do to refill the 134a or the gas that is inside. So, it is a replacement. So, what we do is we find the best replacement for the unit and it could become a little tricky. What I mean by that is they’ve had this unit for three, five, seven years, so we have to take the time to find the unit that fits that old cooling unit.

T: Okay, so what happens to the Freon? Does it leak from the system? Does it go away? Does it become less useful over time? Why doesn’t it just keep going?

What Happens to the Freon Over Time?

S: On a split system unit, you acquire leaks. And so, leaks can happen from multiple amounts of things. Any type of debris or things that are going into the system, making the system run a little bit longer, maybe it is not cycling enough. It’s making sure it’s configured enough to where you don’t have those specific leaks that have the issues. But it’s also that eventually after a year or a year in a half, the gas is just gonna run out just like the fuel in the car.

T: Where does it go? I mean, you’re basically saying they leak somehow, cause otherwise where is it gonna go?

S: It leaks from the condensing unit and so there are sometimes holes in the condensing unit.

T: And that happens only on split-system or on self-contained as well?

Does Freon Leakage Happen Only With Split-System Cooling Units?

S: Self-contained as well. But mostly self-contained is a condensing unit and the coil are all-in-one package and it has a certain amount of freon that it has for up to about three to seven years depending.

T: Does the freon become less useful over time or does something else break?

What Should You Do When There’s Freon Leakage?

S: So what ends up happening is that if you have a leak in the line set or in the condensing unit, it’s just you’re gonna have come in there and fix it. Or we have to make sure we test it every 6 months to make sure that the unit is still gonna be optimal even with the specific leaks within the system. But there are ways to fix that during our service.

What Are the Signs of Freon Leakage?

JOSH: So, let say that someone who maybe they bought a house that has a wine cellar in it or they have had one for a while, they’re not very mechanically minded, what kind of symptoms are they gonna see that might be an indicator that they need help with their Freon, or they need a recharge, or they should call you?

How Does Freon Work?

S: We have to know exactly what kind of unit it is. Make, model, and then we can come out there and take a look at it and see if it’s even salvageable. And if it’s salvageable then we will go out and really try to fix it — that’s our goal — is to be able to service it to get it back to life. Imagine your car running out of fuel, what do you think the damages is gonna do to your car. Same thing with your cooling unit — once you just run out of fuel, it can ice up. So it becomes as an ice ball, and so when there is an ice ball then all of a sudden — if you know any of those old refrigerators that get an ice ball it never really works the same — so you have to defrost it, and then get some more Freon in there, clean it out and then hopefully it’ll maintain or stay the way it’s supposed to run, and that doesn’t usually happen.

T: The analogy you’re making would be more consistent with the oil in the engine and the Freon in a wine cellar cooling system because the engine in a car runs on gas whereas the cooling system runs on electricity.

S: Right.

T: So the freon is the element flowing through the system and the oil is something that makes the engine work. If you run out of oil, you’re gonna screw up your engine.

S: Right, same analogy.

T: So, it’s a bit like getting a car serviced on a regular basis. If you don’t get your car serviced, it can run low on oil and you’ll create knock-on problems. If you don’t get your cooling system serviced, it can generate other problems, and presumably, Freon isn’t the only one which is using that, by an example. So, you gotta have it checked every year to make sure that there’s not some aspect of the cooling system that is going to create a knock-on problem.

Wine Cellar Cooling Unit Maintenance

S: Correct. Because if you end up having a yearly maintenance, customers sometimes get frustrated that their unit only lasted three years or five years but they never received a service ever.

T: Right.

S: So, some of these units that I service — one here in Ritz-Carlton –I’ve put in over 15 years ago, the same units but every 6 months we provide a service to these units and they’ll run for 15-20 years, if not longer. So, if you can take care of your car and get the oil change and other maintenance you have in your home, the investment that you have inside of the wine room is so significant, above and beyond, sometimes a car, you’d want to be able to put that investment into your cooling unit to make sure it’s running properly. So a cooling unit with a proper yearly service contract, where we would provide or any company can provide you a yearly service, that’s kind of what you should have where they’ll notify you, let you know it’s time for a service so then, you know, they can get out there.

Your unit works harder obviously in the summertime, so everybody calls in the summer but it should be to where you want to have it and just a yearly maintenance whenever that date is. It could be in the winter. If you want something immediate I would try to have somebody come out in the spring or in the winter, and so that’s ready to go. So, some people don’t like to wait until the summertime because they know that unit is going to be working overtime during those times.

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