Skip to main content
$89 A/C Tune-Up, book before Sept 30
Polar Express HVAC & Refrigeration

24/7 Commercial Refrigeration

Emergency refrigeration, answered by a person at 2 a.m.

Polar Express provides emergency refrigeration repair across the San Antonio metro, with 24/7 emergency dispatch and same-day service on most repair calls. One flat-rate price is approved in writing before work begins for walk-ins, reach-ins, merchandisers, freezers, and ice machines. TDLR license TACLA00127982C.

The first thing you get is not a dispatch time. It is what to do with the product in the next twenty minutes, while a technician is on the way.

Call 24/7 · (210) 376-0781Book Service
  • Licensed TACLA00127982C
  • Since 2023
  • 4.9 Google rating

24/7 emergency dispatch

Call now. A person answers.

Any hour, any day of the year, including holidays. Tell us what the equipment is reading and we will tell you what to do with the product while a technician is on the way.

Call 24/7 · (210) 376-0781See our commercial services

Flat-rate price approved before any work starts, on emergency calls the same as on scheduled ones.

Refrigeration fails at closing time, on a holiday weekend, in the middle of a rush. That is not bad luck, it is load. The equipment works hardest exactly when the building is busiest and the office is closed. Polar Express answers its emergency line around the clock, every day of the year, and the first thing you get is not a dispatch window. It is a conversation about the product: what is in the box, what it is reading, and what somebody should be doing in the next twenty minutes while a technician is on the way. Inventory decisions made in the first hour are worth more than anything that happens in the fourth, which is why we start there.

What we handle

Emergency Refrigeration Repair covers more than one failure.

The complaint that gets called in is rarely the whole job. These are the things a technician is actually looking at on this equipment.

  • After-hours, weekend, and holiday failures

    A real person answers, any hour, any day of the year. Refrigeration does not fail on a schedule, so the phone does not keep one either.

  • Boxes drifting out of safe temperature

    Coolers climbing toward the 41 F cold-holding line and freezers losing their hold, triaged by how fast the number is actually moving.

  • Inventory protection guidance

    What to consolidate, what to relocate, what to ice, and what to stop putting in the box, given to you on the phone before anyone arrives.

  • Emergency repair on any brand

    Walk-ins, reach-ins, prep tables, merchandisers, and ice machines, on whatever equipment the last owner or the last contractor left you.

  • Temporary measures when a part is not available

    When a component cannot be sourced overnight we say so plainly, then work out what keeps you operating and compliant until it can be.

Signs and causes

What you are seeing, and what usually causes it.

Read these before you call. Knowing which one matches gets the right parts on the truck, and a couple of them are worth acting on in the next ten minutes.

  • The temperature is climbing, not just high

    A box at 45 F and holding is a same-day call. A box at 45 F and rising a degree every twenty minutes is an emergency, because the shape of that curve is what tells you whether product survives the night.

  • The compressor is silent, or it keeps tripping the breaker

    No compressor means no recovery at all, and a breaker that trips repeatedly means an electrical fault that gets worse each time somebody resets it. Both are calls to make immediately rather than in the morning.

  • The freezer coil is fully iced and the box is warming

    Once airflow stops, a freezer warms even though everything still sounds normal from across the room. Frozen product has a real amount of thermal mass to spend, but nothing puts it back afterward.

  • You smell refrigerant, or there is oil around the unit

    Oil staining at a joint or around a compressor usually points at a refrigerant leak. Ventilate the space, keep people away from the equipment, and call. Do not keep running the system while you wait for advice about it.

  • Water is spreading across the floor

    A blocked drain or a failed line in a working kitchen is a slip hazard, an electrical hazard around equipment, and an inspection problem all in one event. That combination is worth a night call rather than a morning one.

What it costs

You approve the price before the work starts.

Emergency work is priced differently from a scheduled visit, and we say that up front rather than at the bottom of an invoice. The rule itself does not change. The technician diagnoses the failure, tells you what it costs to fix, and waits for your approval before starting. If the honest answer at two in the morning is that a permanent repair needs a part nobody can source until Monday, you will hear that too, along with exactly what we can do tonight to keep product safe and the doors open.

Request a quote

What moves the number

  • The hour and the day, since after-hours and holiday dispatch is not billed like a Tuesday morning
  • What failed, and whether the part is already on the truck
  • Whether the visit ends in a permanent repair or a temporary measure to protect product
  • Access to the equipment, including rooftop and remote condensing units
  • Whether the site is covered by an agreement that carries priority dispatch
  • Any follow-up work needed once the immediate emergency is stabilized

How the job runs

What happens between your call and a working system.

  1. Step 1

    A person answers, and triages

    Not a voicemail box and not a script. The questions are what the box reads, how fast it is moving, and what is inside it, because those three answers set the priority against everything else in the queue.

  2. Step 2

    You get instructions before we arrive

    Consolidate, keep the doors shut, kill a defrost cycle, move the high-value product. These steps cost nothing and save inventory, so they happen while the technician is still driving rather than after.

  3. Step 3

    Diagnose, quote, approve, repair

    The same flat-rate rule as every other job on this site. Emergency pricing does not mean open-ended pricing, and you see the number and say yes before the work begins.

  4. Step 4

    Stabilize now, finish in daylight

    If the permanent fix needs a part that does not exist tonight, we get you operating and come back with the real repair on a schedule you agreed to rather than one we assumed.

Questions

Straight answers, before you call.

Still not covered here? The person who answers the phone can usually settle it in a sentence, day or night.

Call (210) 376-0781

Any situation where product is at risk or a temperature is moving in the wrong direction and will not stop. A cooler climbing steadily, a freezer that has lost its hold, a compressor that will not run, a breaker that keeps tripping, and a suspected refrigerant leak all qualify. If you are not sure, call and describe it, because triage on the phone costs nothing.

Close the doors and stop opening them, consolidate product into whichever box is still holding, and move the highest-value and most temperature-sensitive items first. Write down the time and the temperature when the problem was noticed, because that record is what your health authority will ask about later. Ice is a legitimate short-term tool, used on product rather than thrown into the box.

The dispatch usually costs more. The night often costs less. What makes a refrigeration failure expensive is rarely the repair itself, it is the product and the shift somebody spends managing the fallout. When a box is genuinely stable and nothing is at risk, we will tell you that waiting for a scheduled visit is the cheaper decision, and it happens more than you would think.

Yes. We service every major brand of commercial refrigeration regardless of who put it in, and most of the emergency work we do is on equipment we did not install. Bring us whatever documentation exists and we will work from the equipment itself when there is none, which is a normal night in this trade rather than an obstacle.

Yes, across the metro we serve, including Stone Oak, Alamo Heights, Helotes, Boerne, New Braunfels, Schertz, Cibolo, Converse, Universal City, Live Oak, and Leon Valley. If your business sits just past one of those and the equipment is commercial, call anyway. The person who answers can tell you in a sentence whether we can get to you.

Polar Express provides a real arrival window by phone for emergency refrigeration calls across San Antonio, with 24/7 dispatch every day, including nights, weekends, and holidays. Same-day service is available on most repair calls. Priority follows product risk, temperature movement, equipment condition, and the active route, not a fixed guarantee.

Polar Express emergency refrigeration work in San Antonio starts with product triage, then covers temperatures, pressures, airflow, controls, electrical operation, and the equipment fault itself. The business receives one written flat-rate price approved before work begins. When a permanent part is unavailable, the technician explains the safe temporary measure and the follow-up scope.

Related services

The work that usually comes with this one.

Nearby

We run this service across the San Antonio metro. These are three of the areas we cover, and the full list lives on the service areas page.

One call, day or night.

Licensed, locally owned, and answering the phone around the clock. You get the diagnosis in plain language and the price before the work starts.

Call 24/7 · (210) 376-0781Book Service