Inn Doctor » Health and Safety

Frozen kegs and remote cooling problems

boz — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:22:21 +0000

The extremely cold weather is likely to be with us for some time to come. So there are a couple of important items for you, the landlord to be aware of, that might affect your safety and your profits.

1.Keep a close eye on your remote cooler during the freeze. In particular if you experience a rise in temperature on the remote unit, and your beer is dispensing warmer than usual, then the chances are the heat dump unit which in most cases is fitted to an outside wall may be frozen. This usually shouldn’t happen as these units are fed with a water/ glycol mixture which is designed not to freeze. However quite often this mixture has been over diluted during the summer period and may therefore freeze, either in the pipe work which feeds the unit or the heat dump itself.

If you suspect you may be experiencing this problem you must ring your technical services as there is nothing you can do. If however your system is working correctly, what you can do is to put a non urgent call in to tech services and ask that your remote be checked for the correct glycol levels. Some brewers have trained landlords on how to top up with glycol and have left supplies on site. DO NOT USE CAR ANTI FREEZE IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

2.If you have a keg delivery, check to see there are no signs of damage such as splits or bulges. Depending where the kegs have been stored they may be frozen inside, although most brewers store full kegs in warehouses these days. This situation can be very dangerous as it causes a massive increase in pressure within the keg. If you suspect you have a frozen keg do not go near it, do not attempt to connect it for service, and call tech services right away. Also during this cold snap do not store full beer kegs outside for the same reason.

Lets be careful people….

Something to think about

boz — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:53:56 +0000

As the old saying goes “familiarity breeds contempt”.

Cleaning Fluid

Whilst visiting a beer cellar recently one of our contributing technicians came across a safety issue that affects us all. As he was doing his technical thing with the spanners he noticed the landlord was cleaning the beer lines. Fine no problem there he thought but then he could not help notice the way in which the landlord was chucking beer line cleaner casually around the cellar as though this stuff was harmless.

The technician felt he had to give him a gentle reminder about how dangerous beer line cleaner can be.

He told him about a case were a a female landlady had spilt line cleaner on her foot and had not bothered to wipe it off. She became seriously ill with blood poisoning, the cleaner having been absorbed through her skin.

Needless to say the landlord saw the error of his ways.

So lets just remind ourselves once more …..Beer Line Cleaning Fluid is Dangerous.

Use it with care and observe good health and safety practices at all times.

How quickly accidents can happen

P J — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:17:37 +0000

This gives me the goose bumps every time I see it, reminds me of the times when I have nearly fallen through myself. There are lots of pubs out there with access to the cellar via a hatch behind the bar and there always seems to be nasty sharp metal objects to land on when you do.

I thought I would put this up just to remind us how quickly an accident can happen, when the mind is focused on something else. There must be loads of people who have fallen through in this way, but hasn’t been recorded by CCTV Are you one of them?

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