True Refrigeration Installation & Same-Day Service in NYC

Almost never the compressor and almost never refrigerant. True’s modern hydrocarbon (R290) loops are sealed and rarely lose charge. The actual diagnosis order on a warm True cabinet: condenser coil cleanliness, evaporator fan motor amp draw, door gasket integrity, defrost timer behavior, then compressor amp draw and refrigerant pressures. In 10 years of NYC service, we have replaced maybe two-dozen True compressors out of hundreds of warm-cabinet calls. The other 95% were the four cheap things ahead of the compressor.

Not at all — R290 is the EPA-approved natural refrigerant True has standardized on for newer cabinets (since roughly 2019-2020). It is more efficient than the R134a generation it replaced, and FDNY has no operational restrictions on R290 in commercial cabinets at the small refrigerant volumes involved (50g-150g per cabinet). The only practical change is that R290 service requires R290-rated leak detectors and refrigerant recovery equipment — which we carry. Some older contractors are slow to adopt and will tell you to avoid R290 cabinets; that advice is about their tools, not your equipment.

Standard True warranty on most commercial cabinets is 5 years on the cabinet, 1 year parts and labor on the unit, and 5 years on the sealed compressor system — from the date of original purchase by the end user (not the date of manufacture). E-Series and ENERGY STAR variants carry extended terms. The most common way operators lose the warranty is calling a non-authorized contractor who uses generic aftermarket parts — True voids the warranty on parts True did not supply. We file warranty claims through True’s authorized service portal, which keeps your coverage intact.

Both — True’s modular walk-in cooler / freezer line uses the same compressor philosophy, the same evaporator coil engineering, and the same parts-pipeline as the reach-in catalog. Most service problems on True walk-ins are upstream of the cabinet itself — evaporator fan motors, expansion-valve calibration, condensing-unit airflow. Same diagnostic process, same parts stocked, same warranty channel.

Quarterly for high-volume NYC kitchens — restaurants doing 100+ covers a day, busy bars, bodegas with foot traffic. Semi-annual is the floor for low-volume operators (small delis, light-use bodegas). The single most-skipped task is condenser coil cleaning — NYC kitchen grease coats the back coil in 60-90 days and a clogged condenser is the leading cause of premature compressor failure on True units. A $150 quarterly clean prevents the $2,500 emergency call.