If the box is above 41°F you are on a four-hour clock before temperature-controlled product has to be thrown out. Call the line — it is answered by a person at any hour. While you wait, get a thermometer into the product rather than reading the box display, keep the door shut, and write down the time you first noticed. That timestamp is what protects you with an inspector.
The first ten minutes, before we arrive
- Measure the product, not the air. Put a probe into the densest item you have. The four-hour rule is about food temperature, not box temperature, and the box display may be lying to you anyway.
- Write down the time. The moment you first noticed, and the reading. If an inspector arrives later, a contemporaneous note is the difference between a conversation and an embargo.
- Keep the door closed. Every opening pulls in warm humid air that both raises the temperature and ices the coil further.
- Do not chip ice off the coil. You will damage the fins, reduce airflow permanently, and destroy the evidence of which circuit was not clearing.
- Look at the condenser. If you can safely see it and it is matted with grease and lint, tell us on the phone. It changes what we bring.
- Move the highest-value product if you have somewhere genuinely cold to put it. Not into a second box that is already full — overloading that one causes the next failure.
What we commit to
| Line answered | By a person, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Not a menu, not a voicemail box. |
|---|---|
| Core ring | On site within 4 hours on an emergency. Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Chelsea, Everett, Brookline, Quincy, Medford, Malden, Revere, Watertown. |
| Outer ring | Same day if you call before noon, first slot the next morning after that. Newton, Waltham, Woburn, Needham, Dedham, Framingham. |
| Diagnostic | $185, credited against the repair. |
| Workmanship | One year. |
One promise, written once, the same on every page of this site. If you have been quoted “45 minutes”, “60 minutes” and “two hours” by the same company, you already know why that matters.
What actually counts as an emergency
Product at risk is an emergency. A freezer climbing, a cooler above 41°F, a door frozen shut on a full box, water across a kitchen floor during service. A gasket that has been torn for three weeks is not, and we would rather book that properly on Tuesday at standard rates than charge you an after-hours premium for it. We will say so on the phone.
Why so many emergency calls happen in two windows
May to July, condensers that have not been cleaned all year cannot reject heat on the first properly hot day, head pressure climbs and the system trips. October to December, outdoor condensers over-condense in the cold, head pressure collapses, and boxes drift up. Both are predictable, and both are why a coil clean in April and a head-pressure check in September prevent most of what we get called out for.
Questions we get asked
Do you really answer at 3am?
Yes. A person, not a machine. Walk-ins do not fail politely at ten in the morning — they fail after service when the kitchen has gone quiet and nobody is watching the box.
What does an after-hours call cost?
The diagnostic is the same $185 and it is still credited against the repair. After-hours labour carries a premium, which we tell you on the phone before we dispatch rather than on the invoice afterwards.
My product is already warm. Is it salvageable?
That depends entirely on how long it has been in the danger zone. Over four hours between 41°F and 135°F and the Food Code says it goes. We are refrigeration technicians rather than your health inspector, but we will give you the temperatures in writing so you can make the call with real numbers.
Can you get a temporary box or rental unit?
We can help you arrange one for a major failure where the repair will take days, though for most faults it is faster to fix the box than to rent one.
Do contract customers get priority?
Yes, and we say so plainly. On a bad Saturday, contract sites are dispatched first. That is one of the things a contract is actually buying.