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Polar Express HVAC & Refrigeration

Commercial Refrigeration

A maintenance agreement is a bet, and the math is not close.

Polar Express provides commercial refrigeration maintenance contracts across the San Antonio metro, with 24/7 emergency dispatch. Same-day service is available on most repair calls, and the first month is free on a 12-month agreement with one flat-rate price approved in writing before work begins. TDLR license TACLA00127982C.

Scheduled visits at a time you chose, against one emergency call at the worst possible hour plus the product in the box. Written terms, no bundled mystery fee.

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  • 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.

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

A maintenance contract is not really a service you buy, it is a bet you place. You are betting that a scheduled visit, at an hour you chose, costs less than the emergency call you will otherwise take at the worst possible time, plus the product in the box, plus the shift somebody spends on the phone instead of running the floor. For most San Antonio restaurants, bars, convenience stores, and clinics that bet is not close. Polar Express writes refrigeration maintenance agreements around the equipment you actually own, with the visit schedule, the task list, and the terms in writing before anybody signs anything.

What we handle

Preventive Maintenance Contracts 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.

  • Scheduled visits on your calendar

    Visits set around your operation rather than ours: before open, after close, or on your slow day, agreed at the time the agreement is written.

  • Condenser and evaporator cleaning

    The highest-value task on the list. Clean coils are the difference between a system that lasts and one that runs hot for years and then quits in July.

  • Temperature, pressure, and electrical checks

    Readings taken and recorded every visit, so a system that is slowly drifting shows up as a trend instead of as a surprise on a Saturday night.

  • Doors, gaskets, and seals

    Inspected and adjusted on every box, every visit, because seals are the cheapest item on the list and the first thing on any box to go.

  • Drains, filters, and water treatment

    Drain lines cleared, ice machine filtration checked, and cleaning intervals set against local water hardness rather than a generic national schedule.

  • A written report you can hand an inspector

    What was checked, what was found, what was corrected, and what is coming. Documentation of diligence as much as a service record.

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.

  • You only see a refrigeration technician in an emergency

    If every visit is a failure, you are paying emergency rates for work that could have been scheduled, and you are learning about problems from your product instead of from a reading somebody took two weeks earlier.

  • Nobody is logging temperatures

    A box that drifts two degrees a month is invisible without a log and obvious with one. The log is also the first thing a health inspector asks for when something in the walk-in looks questionable.

  • The coils on your equipment have visible buildup

    Grease and dust on a condenser is deferred maintenance you can see from across the room. It raises run time and head pressure on every unit it touches, and it is the cheapest thing in this trade to correct.

  • Nobody can say when each unit was last serviced

    Equipment nobody is tracking gets serviced when it breaks. In a kitchen with eight refrigerated units, that arrangement means something is always about to fail and never at a convenient hour.

  • One failure would cost more than a year of visits

    Do that arithmetic once, using the real value of what sits in the walk-in on a Friday night rather than an average. For most full-service kitchens it ends the debate in about a minute.

What it costs

You approve the price before the work starts.

Maintenance agreements are priced per site and per equipment list, because a two-unit coffee shop and a full-service kitchen with a walk-in, a freezer, four reach-ins, and an ice machine are not the same contract and should not carry the same number. We build the price from the equipment inventory and the visit frequency that equipment genuinely needs, and we show you the line items rather than a bundled monthly figure with nothing behind it. Contract customers also get priority in the dispatch order and a defined rate for repair work outside the covered scope, written down before you sign.

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What moves the number

  • How many refrigerated units are on the agreement, and of what kind
  • Visit frequency, from twice a year up to quarterly or monthly on heavy equipment
  • Whether ice machine cleanings and filter changes are included in the scope
  • How much filter and consumable material the site goes through in a year
  • Site conditions and access, including rooftop or remote condensing units
  • Whether the agreement carries priority dispatch and a set rate on covered repairs

How the job runs

What happens between your call and a working system.

  1. Step 1

    Equipment walkthrough

    We inventory every refrigerated unit on site, note the age, the condition, and the access, and flag anything already failing before it goes onto an agreement. Nobody benefits from a contract written over a dying compressor.

  2. Step 2

    A schedule your operation can live with

    Frequency is set per unit type, then batched into visits that land when the kitchen can spare the space. A plan nobody can honor is worse than no plan at all, because it looks like coverage.

  3. Step 3

    The agreement in writing

    Covered tasks, covered units, visit count, dispatch priority, repair rate, and term. Everything you would want to check in month nine is on the page in month one.

  4. Step 4

    Reporting after every visit

    You get the readings and the findings, and we tell you what is trending badly with enough lead time to budget for it rather than react to it in the middle of service.

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.

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At minimum: condenser and evaporator cleaning, temperature and pressure readings, electrical connection checks, gasket and door inspection, drain clearing, and a written report after every visit. Anything vaguer than that is a subscription rather than a maintenance agreement. Ask any contractor for the task list before signing, and ask specifically what sits outside the covered scope.

Twice a year is the practical minimum for most equipment, quarterly is the right answer for a busy kitchen, and ice machines and high-load walk-ins frequently need more than that. The correct interval depends far more on the environment the condenser lives in than on the age of the box, which is why we set frequency per unit rather than per site.

Our agreements cover the scheduled maintenance work and set the terms for repairs, rather than pretending every possible failure is bundled in. You get priority in the dispatch queue and a defined rate for covered repair work, and anything outside that scope is quoted flat rate and approved by you before it starts, exactly like any other job we do.

It depends entirely on what one failure would cost you. A convenience store with two coolers and a small ice machine may be better served by scheduled visits without a formal agreement, and we will tell you that rather than sell you a contract. A kitchen holding thousands of dollars of product across several boxes is a completely different calculation.

Whoever runs the site signs the visit report, and you keep a copy with the readings, the completed tasks, the findings, and the recommendations. Hold on to them. A documented maintenance history helps with warranty claims, with insurance conversations, and with an inspector who wants to see that the equipment is being managed rather than merely present.

Polar Express provides one written flat-rate price for a San Antonio refrigeration maintenance agreement, approved before work begins. The first month is free on a 12-month commercial refrigeration preventive maintenance agreement. The remaining price depends on the equipment count and type, visit frequency, and whether ice machine cleaning, filters, or other consumables are included.

Polar Express can cover all major commercial refrigeration brands across San Antonio, including walk-in coolers, walk-in freezers, reach-ins, prep tables, display cases, and ice machines. The written equipment inventory names every covered unit, its condition, the visit frequency, and the maintenance tasks, so the agreement follows the actual site rather than a generic package.

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