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Commonly Encountered Maintenance Problems in Commercial Kitchens

By Mr. C.B. Nuthra Vice President (Engg.)

 

 

 

The commercial kitchens are the production units of any organizations whether it is Hotel, Restaurant, Banquet or any other business outlet like Fast Food, or road side Dhabas. These kitchens consist of mostly white powder coated metallic false ceilings stainless steel kitchen equipments and kota stone flooring. In some kitchen, we may find aluminium sheet false ceiling. The light fittings are recessed in false ceiling and have perspex cover over the fluorescent tubes to avoid any Glass breakage falling in food items. The kitchen equipments are operated with electrically, LPG, Coal and water.
 The electrical operated kitchen equipments are Hotcase, Bain Marie Service Counter, Refrigerators, coffee Machine, Tea-Coffee Dispensers, Deep Freezers and Masala Grinders etc.
The equipments like cooking ranges, Chinese Cooking Range, Griddle Plate, Oven and Bakery Oven are operated on LPG. The tandoors in kitchen are operated with coal. The dishwash sink, counter sink and bain marie etc. Needs cold water and hot water for their use. We face many problem in these commercial kitchen for day to day use and these are listed below:-

 (a) Electrically operated kitchen equipment: 

·    Tripping of miniature circuit breakers because of wrong selection in terms of capacity, short circuiting etc.

·    Overloading of circuit by using high rated kitchen equipment in less rated M.C.B.

·    Failure of insulation of P.V.C. wires dues to over heating of circuit or continuous use of Electrical Equipment.

·    Short circuiting of air heaters being used in Hot cases and service counters for continuously long hours usage.

·    Burning of Immersion heaters of Bain marie when sufficient water quality not available in the Bain Marie.

·    Short-circuiting of electrical wiring by putting water on electrical switches while cleaning the kitchen during night hours by unskilled worker.

·    Damaging the immersion heaters o tea/coffee boilers and milk boilers by not monitoring the quantity of water in tea boiler and that of milk in milk boiler.

(B) LPG Operated Kitchen Equipments:

·   The cooking ranges are operated on LPG and if LPG supply is not maintained properly, it may cause the problem of fire in kitchen.

·    Smoke created by continuous use of LPG in commercial kitchen needs to be exhausted properly.

·   The hoods over the ranges should have filters to control oil and Greece, otherwise the smoke carried along  with oil and Greece shall cause problems of fire is exhaust chimney.

·   The LPG operated equipment have burners which needs to be cleaned regularly to avoid mishap.

·   The oil, ghee used are cooking of production items needs to be handled properly otherwise by spillage over LPG operated equipment can cause problem of fire.

(C) Water Operated Kitchen Equipments:

·    Dish washing machines needs electricity and water both. As the water mixed with chemical is used for cleaning the plates, glasses, etc. The water and electricity in dish washing machines needs to be handled properly to avoid mishap.

·    The water used in Pot wash and dish wash sinks needs to be disposed of properly otherwise the drainage problem arises.

·    Open channel drainage is recommended in commercial kitchen as the pipe drainage is always found choked due to spoon, forks and bones of food items going in drain pipe by mistake of unskilled workers of kitchens.

·    The commercial kitchens are cleaned with hot water / steam during night hours. The water used for cleaning of tiles, wall stones, floor stone etc. gets into the electrical equipment and created the problem of short circuit of electricity system.

(D) Common Problem:

·    We are using electricity, water, LPG and Coal in kitchens, it becomes essential that these are handled properly otherwise the fire fighting has to be resorted resulting into heavy losses.

·    The refrigerators, deep freezers and cold storage needs to maintained at the desired temperature otherwise lot of spoilage of raw material is reported by Executive Chef.

·    The bakery cold storage is very important for control of desired temperature otherwise lot of products prepared by bakery chef are wasted resulting into loss of materials and manpower.

·    The periodical maintenance once in six months of civil works such as painting on ceiling, walls and other offices etc. Needs to be done for commercial kitchens.

·    The preventive maintenance on monthly basis of electrical panels and distribution boards is required to be done for keeping the system healthy against any short circuit / over heating of feeders circuits.

·    The exhaust chimney needs to be cleaned periodically at least twice in a year to avoid any mishap of fire.

·    The inner surface of Tea-Boiler and Milk Boiler needs to be cleaned on daily basis to avoid collection of any deposits.

    There are the common problems in commercial kitchen. We have to attend there problem immediately otherwise the production schedule of Executive chef gets disturbed resulting into delay in guest services of restaurant/ banquet hall. The delay in guest services should be avoided for as possible because no guest would like to listen to our problem, they need service and we should give them excellent service for better results

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