Viking · Outdoor kitchens
Refrigeration in a Viking grill island
The refrigeration in an outdoor kitchen fails for reasons the indoor version never encounters, and the most common one is decided years earlier, on the day somebody chose the unit.
- Covered
- Outdoor refrigeration
- Not covered
- The grill itself
- Season
- Winterising matters
Indoor-rated units do not survive outdoors, and they look identical
An outdoor-rated undercounter refrigerator is built differently: sealed electronics, corrosion-resistant fasteners, a condenser and fan specified for ambient temperatures well above a kitchen, and a cabinet that expects rain to get to it. An indoor unit of the same size, in the same stainless finish, costs less and fits the same aperture.
The failure is entirely predictable and takes two or three seasons. The compressor runs continuously in August because the ambient is above what its controls were designed for, and the electronics corrode in the meantime. This is worth checking before spending money on a repair, because putting a new fan motor into the wrong appliance buys a year at most.
Masonry islands and where the heat goes
An undercounter unit set into a stone or block island needs the heat it removes to leave the island. Built-in ventilation panels get closed off by a mason working to a drawing that did not show them, or blocked later by storage. The unit is then recycling its own discharge air, which produces a cabinet that never reaches set point on the days it is most needed.
Checked on an outdoor unit
- Whether the appliance is outdoor-rated at all, read off the plate
- Front and rear ventilation clearance inside the island structure
- Condenser fins for salt, pollen and grill grease, which is a worse fouling agent than dust
- Circuit protection: nuisance GFCI tripping on a long run from the house
- Drain routing and whether it has been arranged to freeze
Winter is the other half of the job
An outdoor ice maker with water still in it will not survive a New England January, and neither will a supply line run under a patio without a way of draining it. Most of the outdoor calls that arrive in April are last October’s decision arriving late. Shutting the water off at the house, draining the line and the reservoir, and leaving the door propped is the whole of it, and it takes about twenty minutes.
Grills, burners, rotisseries and their gas trains are outside what this bench works on, Viking or otherwise. Refrigeration and ice in the island are the part we take.
Where to go from here
Manufacturer
Reviews
From undercounter and ice work
5out of 5from 1,426 reviews
5 out of 5
The bar machine in the butler pantry buzzed at harvest and released nothing. Cutter grid had a broken wire. He sourced the grid, returned when it landed, and cleaned the reservoir while it was apart.
Preston O. · Weston
5 out of 5
The alarm cleared every morning and came back after dark, which made me sound completely mad on the phone. He believed me anyway, fitted a logger, and caught a door switch that only failed once the kitchen cooled at night. Sorted on the second call.
Terri M. · Newton Lower Falls
5 out of 5
Compressor noise was carrying up into the dining room through the floor. The mounting grommets had perished. He renewed them and levelled the cabinet, and the hum is now something you have to listen for.
Roland J. · Sudbury
Booking
Book a look at the island
Model and serial from the plate inside the fresh-food door, and when it started. That is usually enough for a straight answer on the phone.
Flat $95 service call · 8:00 am – 8:00 pm, seven days · line answered 24/7