Spring cleaning is an important process for homes and businesses. It’s a perfect time of year, since things are already in flux, to open the windows, refresh the desktops and dismantle and clean the machinery of our homes and offices. One thing you’ll want to be sure to add to the list is cleaning the refrigerator door gaskets. It may seem like an odd thing to do while going about your yearly house cleaning, but there is a good reason: A poorly sealing refrigerator door gasket can add to your electric bill and cause food spoilage.
Regular cleaning can help prevent things from obstructing the refrigerator from sealing correctly. Cold air seeping out and being replaced by warm air can slowly push your electric bill up and cause food (especially near or in the doors) to spoil more quickly. The extra cost is because the refrigerator door gasket’s improper seal is allowing cold air to leak out; to maintain the proper temperature, the refrigerator has to work harder to keep the temperature down. The change won’t be drastic for a homeowner unless the gaskets are really shot, but for a restaurant or small business owner with multiple refrigeration units, it can add up fairly quickly and substantially.
If you’re a restaurant owner, you’ll definitely want to clean your refrigerator door gaskets more often than once a year. It’s an inexpensive bit of maintenance to prevent possible breaches of health and safety regulations. Spoiled food is bad but can be easily caught and replaced. But a citation from health inspectors can be expensive and damage your reputation. The impetus to check and maintain the seals on refrigerators is very high for restaurant owners. A normal restaurant has a dedicated cleaning time every week where they take care of things they don’t get to during daily maintenance. Checking the refrigerator door gasket on large and small refrigeration units for grime, grease, and junk can be important. Remember that in a professional kitchen, when you cook, grease gets into the air, and if it mixes with dust, it forms a paste that can be surprisingly sticky.
Replacing refrigerator door gaskets can be difficult to do with the precision required, so it’s worth the money to hire a professional the first time around. Regular maintenance can help prevent a refrigerator door gasket from breaking down to the point that it needs replacing. If it does get to that point, the question is no longer about spring cleaning but about your comfort with household repairs as opposed to hiring professionals.
If you have a faulty refrigerator door gasket, you stand to suffer some substantial losses until it’s properly repaired. Contact Gaskets Direct, serving the Austin and Waco areas, to fix the problem and help you instill maintenance to prevent future breakdowns. Call Gaskets Direct at 512-623-0941, email gasketguy4u@yahoo.com or visit online at http://www.gasketsdirecttexas.com/index.html
