Questions and Answers

Start with your metro page. This directory covers 35 metros across Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and each metro page lists every company we have verified as serving that area, whether they are based there or cover it from nearby. The distinction matters: a company an hour away may still be the right call, but you should know that is what you are choosing.

Browse by state

A person opened the company's own website and checked six things against it: that the site is genuinely theirs, the phone number, the address or service area, the equipment they say they work on, the brands they name, and what they publish about hours and emergency cover. 117 of 117 listings have had that check. It is not a quality rating, and we have never inspected anyone's work.

How verification works

No. We check that a company is real, reachable and does the work it claims. We do not rate quality, we do not take payment for verification, and a paid listing shows exactly the same checked facts as a free one. Two companies on the same page may be very different to deal with, and this directory cannot tell you which is which.

That someone rang that published number and a person picked up. 42 of 117 listings carry it. It is the strongest thing we can say about a company and it still proves very little: it does not mean they are good, and it does not mean the number still works today. One company was removed from this directory because its published number turned out to answer as a different business entirely, which is why the check exists.

Every company whose number we rang

82 listings publish round-the-clock or emergency cover. We have not tested those claims at night, and the site says so wherever the claim appears. What we found calling during the day is that "24/7" hides at least four different promises: the company's own staff answering, an answering service taking a message, a callback from an on-call technician, and a triaged menu reaching a human in about a minute. Ask which one you are getting before you need it.

24/7 and emergency listings

Almost nobody publishes a rate, which is itself worth knowing. The usual structure is a call-out or trip charge, then labour at a premium rate after hours, then parts. Ask for all three separately, ask whether the premium applies from the call or from arrival, and ask what the minimum billable time is. A two-hour minimum on a twenty-minute fix is common and is not a scam, but it should not be a surprise.

What repairs cost, and how call-outs are billed

The rough test is whether the repair costs more than about half of replacement, and whether the unit is past two-thirds of its expected life. But two things change the answer: whether parts are still made for it, and whether it has failed repeatedly for the same reason. A cheap repair on a unit that will fail again in six weeks is the expensive option.

Repair or replace

The make, the model number and the serial number, which are on a data plate usually inside a door, behind a kick panel or on the back. On a fryer it is often behind the door panel, on a walk-in inside the door frame, on a dishwasher inside the wash chamber door, and on a reach-in fridge behind the kick plate. Then the fault code if there is one, written down before you clear it. Then what changed: a recent clean, a power cut, a new delivery blocking airflow. That information is the difference between a technician arriving with the right part and arriving twice.

Write it down before you clear it, because clearing it often erases the only evidence. We hold 497 fault codes across 36 manufacturers, taken from their own service manuals. Be careful matching by number alone: the same code means different things on different makes, so E1 is low ice production on a Hoshizaki, a cabinet probe failure on a True, and an air temperature sensor fault on a Hatco.

Fault code library

Some things, yes, and our code tables mark which responses are operator-safe. Cleaning a fridge or freezer condenser, reseating a dishwasher standpipe, checking a door switch, refilling an ice machine reservoir, levelling a machine that is sitting unevenly. Anything involving gas, refrigerant or opening a panel is not one of them. Several manufacturers state plainly that their equipment has no user-serviceable parts, and at least one warns that removing a panel risks electrocution.

More than most people expect, and the manufacturers themselves document it. Is the door actually closing and the door switch actuating. Is the condenser clean. Is the water supply on and at pressure. Was a locking pin or blocking plate left in after a clean. Is the display showing a mode rather than a fault, because two of the most-reported Garland "faults" are the oven telling you it is cooling down normally.

The Commercial Food Equipment Service Association certifies technicians and companies against a published standard. We confirm it against CFESA's own service locator rather than a company's marketing claim, and 15 listings currently hold it. Two cautions: certification is per-location, so a company with one certified branch is not a certified company, and plenty of excellent independents have never sought it.

CFESA-certified companies

Whatever the company publishes, which is usually nothing. 38 of 117 listings publish terms at all, and where they do we record the wording: ninety days on parts and labour is the most common, twelve months is unusual, and some publish only guaranteed pricing on quotes. A cheaper rate with nothing behind it can cost more than a dearer one with ninety days of cover.

It depends on the equipment and the duty. Hood cleaning frequency is set by NFPA 96 according to what you cook, from monthly for solid fuel to annually for low volume. Refrigeration condensers want quarterly cleaning at minimum, and at least one manufacturer states that failure caused by a dirty coil is not covered under warranty. Ice machines and anything using water need descaling on a schedule set by your water hardness, not by the calendar.

Maintenance checklist

Keep the door shut. A loaded box holds safe temperature for hours, and every opening costs you time you may need. Then get product temperatures recorded, because that is what determines whether stock is saved or binned. 7 companies in this directory publish temporary cold storage rental, which is worth knowing before the stock is at risk rather than after.

Walk-in down: what to do

Sometimes, and it is much cheaper. 4 listings publish bench or drop-off repair, which suits slicers, mixers, small warewashers and coffee equipment. It is rarely advertised prominently, so it is worth asking even where it is not published.

Drop-off repair

Some will, many will not, and it is worth asking before you order anything. A company that fits a part you supplied usually cannot warrant it, and several will not take the liability on gas or electrical components at all. Where they do agree, expect labour-only pricing and no cover on the part itself. 57 listings here publish parts supply alongside repair.

Companies that supply parts

For anything the manufacturer treats as a safety or control component, usually yes, and at least one manufacturer states plainly that using non-genuine replacement parts voids all warranties. For a gasket, a caster or a shelf clip it rarely matters. The question to ask is whether the part is in the warranty chain, not whether it fits.

This is the single most common reason a repair takes days rather than hours, and it is worth asking about on the first call rather than the third. Ask whether the part is in stock locally, in a regional warehouse, or coming from the manufacturer, because those are days apart. On older equipment, ask directly whether parts are still made: a machine that cannot be sourced for is a replacement decision, not a repair one.

Commercial kitchen equipment is its own trade, and a domestic appliance company will usually decline it or get it wrong. Refrigeration and ice need a refrigeration technician. Gas cooking equipment needs someone licensed for commercial gas. Plumbers and electricians are needed for the supply side rather than the equipment, and a hood or suppression system is a different specialism again. Companies here are listed under what they publish, so a company listing both refrigeration and cooking genuinely covers both.

Look at what they publish rather than what a search result says. We have found companies with city pages for places they dispatch to from two hours away, and area codes that do not match the stated territory. Ask directly whether a technician is based near you or travels, and whether travel time is billed.

Is that company actually local?

That they publish whatever they scraped and never touch it again. Of every company we have examined, about 12% did not survive checking: dead domains, parked pages, unfinished templates, duplicate listings, a published number answering as a different business, a residential firm listed as commercial. We publish those removals by name and cause rather than quietly deleting them.

What we found when we checked

Each listing shows the month it was verified. Equipment directories rot quickly, so treat a date more than a few months old as worth confirming on the call. If you ring a number here and it is wrong, tell us and we will recheck it: a verification with a date on it is only worth something if we are willing to withdraw it.

Send us your website. Verification is free, cannot be bought, and is the same six checks for everyone. What helps most is publishing plainly on your own site what you service, where, what your hours actually are, and what you put in writing, because everything we record has to come from there.

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