Hoshizaki Appliance Repair in Philadelphia

Best known for commercial ice machines, Hoshizaki is a Japanese foodservice equipment company whose US operation is headquartered in Georgia. For bars and restaurants it also builds prep tables, undercounter units, and reach-in freezers and refrigerators. Hoshizaki started out making foodservice equipment in Japan and became one of the world's largest suppliers of commercial ice machines. Hoshizaki makes ice machines from undercounter units to modular heads that sit on bins, producing crescent cubes, cubelets or flake ice.

The hardware that matters on a service call includes crescent cube ice machines, cubelet and flake ice makers, stainless steel evaporators, and reach-in and undercounter refrigeration. Scale and poor water quality cause most of the drop in output on a Hoshizaki ice machine, and cleaning plus filtration usually restores it with no new parts.

Hoshizaki ice machines in Philadelphia bars and restaurants lose output on muggy summer days, when warm back rooms and basements cut air-cooled capacity, and scale from moderately hard water builds on the evaporator without filtration. Muggy summers raise the load on Hoshizaki commercial equipment just as dining rooms fill up, and a part that was marginal in spring is often the first thing to give out.

Corner stores, bars and takeout counters run Hoshizaki equipment for long hours, so scheduled cleaning and inspection cost far less than an emergency on a busy night. We work on Hoshizaki all over the city, from Frankford to Point Breeze.

Most Hoshizaki faults fall into a few groups: scale buildup on ice machine evaporators, float switches and water pumps, harvest cycle faults, condenser fans on air-cooled units, and door gaskets on reach-ins.

On Hoshizaki refrigerators, plan on condenser fan motors, door gaskets, evaporator fans, and temperature controllers. Hoshizaki ice makers are prone to scaled-up evaporators, float switches, water pumps, and thermistor and harvest faults. The common Hoshizaki freezer faults are defrost timers and heaters, evaporator fan motors, door heaters and gaskets, and condenser fans.

On Hoshizaki equipment, "the electronics are bad" is a theory until a meter proves it, and that usually takes minutes.

Commercial distributors carry Hoshizaki parts, and the common ice machine components typically arrive in a few days. Most Hoshizaki breakdowns we see trace back to coil cleaning, gasket condition or water treatment that slipped behind schedule.

Hoshizaki equipment is built for long service, so repairs are usually worth it unless the evaporator or compressor has failed on an older machine. We agree the price in writing up front; afterward, parts are covered for 90 days and labor for 30.

Replace water filters on schedule and run a full cleaning and sanitizing cycle at least twice a year. Put equipment cleaning and inspection on the same schedule as hood cleaning; it is the cheapest uptime protection there is.

Jot down any error code and when it shows up; on a Hoshizaki that narrows the diagnosis before we arrive.