Community supermarket equipment technician - fresh-department refrigeration case daily inspection checklist; temperature, door gaskets, frost, and airflow checked twice a day with human blockage ruled out first, condenser weekly, thermometer compared weekly, and the unload-before-calling-repair order is not negotiable

You are the equipment technician at a community
supermarket. The fresh department runs a dozen
display cases (upright coolers, open multidecks,
island freezers). Write me a daily inspection
checklist to hang in the electrical room.

Three blocks:

Block 1 - twice daily (before open, after
evening rush; every case, every round)
1. Temperature: log the reading on the sheet
   taped to each case (one column per day);
   compare against the storage range printed
   on the cabinet. Out of range: re-read once
   on the spot to rule out misreading; still
   out, mark it red
2. Door gaskets: the paper test - close the
   door on a sheet of paper; it should not
   pull out easily. If it slides free, log a
   gasket replacement
3. Frost and airflow: interior frost thicker
   than [frost standard], or no perceptible
   cold air at the discharge of an open
   multideck - log it and route to the weekly
   block
4. Human-caused faults first: check whether
   product or shelf talkers block the air
   outlet or return grille, and whether a
   shelf sits on the return grille - clear
   these before filing any repair ticket; they
   are the majority of "breakdowns"
5. Listen once: compressor cycling sound and
   duration; noticeably more frequent than
   usual gets a note (earliest degradation
   signal - no action today, but it goes on
   the record)

Block 2 - weekly
1. Condenser / coil dusting - power OFF first,
   lock-out tag ("maintenance, do not switch
   on") hung per this line; delis and cooked-
   food areas pull grease-laden dust, so twice
   weekly there
2. Thermometer comparison: cabinet display
   vs. a reference thermometer; difference
   >= [calibration tolerance] degC means the
   display cannot be trusted - file for
   calibration
3. Door tracks, hinges, handles tightened;
   island-case sliding lids aligned
4. Drain outlet and drip tray flushed - a
   blocked one is a flood waiting to happen

Block 3 - immediate unload conditions (any one
met: move the product FIRST, call repair
second; the order is not negotiable)
- Temperature stays out of range longer than
  [excursion limit] with adjustment attempted
- Cooling stopped; compressor noisy or
  short-cycling
- Oil traces or a strange chemical smell in
  the cabinet (refrigerant leak signs) - also
  ventilate and keep open flame away
Unloading procedure: transfer product to the
adjacent backup case; photograph the
thermometer before and after the transfer,
both photos kept

Constraints:
- A day with no entry on the inspection sheet
  gets named at the next morning meeting -
  temperature logs are the first thing health
  inspectors ask for, and missing records are
  harder to explain than an excursion itself
- No "be careful with electricity" filler;
  every line is an action, a number, or a
  standard
- The lock-out tag requirement is written into
  weekly item 1, not a footnote

Why it is written this way

"Rule out human blockage first" sits at item 4 of the daily block by design: stockers stacking product over the air discharge and shelf talkers wedged into return grilles account for the majority of case "failures." File a repair ticket for those and the technician makes a wasted trip; enough wasted trips and real faults start waiting behind fake ones. Making the human check a checklist item improves ticket quality immediately - and spares the technician and the stock crew a standing argument.

"Listen once" is the only daily item that requires no action, and it must stay. The earliest compressor-degradation signal is not temperature (cabinet mass buffers that; it lags) but cycling cadence - heard often enough, an off-rhythm compressor registers. These record-only observation items are what separate an inspection sheet from a repair log: the sheet accumulates trend, and two weeks of it becomes the input for a degradation early-warning pass.

The unload-before-repair order gets its own emphasis because real scenes run it backwards: cabinet alarms, everyone stands around it on the phone waiting for the technician while the product warms in place. Repair response is counted in hours; fresh product holds for minutes. Reverse the order and what arrives is a write-off slip. The before-and-after thermometer photos exist for the after-action conversation: the product was intact at transfer, so whatever happened next is not this cabinet's bill.

"Named at the morning meeting" for a blank sheet sounds harsh until you know what inspectors check: they read the log for continuity, and three missing days are harder to explain than one bad reading. And a broken log cannot be backfilled - gaps stay gaps.

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