Operations

The Day From Hell: A Smoking Pump, a Sewer Backup, and Half the Freezer Switched Off

By the operator · October 19, 2026

I send a short status note at the end of every working day. Most of them are boring on purpose: what got fixed, what’s waiting on parts, who’s coming out tomorrow.

On Friday, July 25, 2025, the first line of mine said THE DAY FROM HELL.

Here’s how that week went, in order, from those notes. I run an underground freezer in the Valmeyer bluffs, and this is what it looks like when things stack up.

The setup

That summer we were finishing a new freezer. A racking crew was installing racks in the new room while the refrigeration was running, and by Tuesday they were about two-thirds of the way down the room.

Monday started with a power outage in the morning. Everything started back up nicely. That’s the last time that week I’d use the word “nicely.”

Tuesday: head-pressure alarms

Around 1:30 in the afternoon, the head-pressure alarms started. Late July is head-pressure season. I started running defrosts on freezer units in the new freezer to work through it. I wrote that night that I was hoping not to have to shut off any units, but that I probably would.

The screw compressor also threw filter warnings that day, so I got a call in about changing them.

Wednesday: one less compressor

Wednesday morning I had what I’ll modestly call a brilliant idea: shut off a compressor. By the time I wrote my note that afternoon, head pressure was sitting at 176 psi. I wasn’t going to say I was amazing, but you know.

That worked on our plant that day. I’m not telling you it’s the answer for yours.

I also called in a service ticket on the controls side.

Thursday: chasing warm spots

Head pressure held all day, all night, and all day again. Brine temperatures held steady, and the compressors were still unloading. Good signs.

So I went hunting temperature problems.

In the old freezer, I made sure doors that should’ve been closed were closed. One unit was completely frosted over. I put it through a defrost for a couple of hours, and you could watch the temperature sensor in the middle of that room start dropping significantly. Another unit looked frosty too, so I gave it a longer defrost.

In the new freezer, I found a door cracked open to the outside. I told the racking crew that wasn’t acceptable, and I decided I’d just keep checking the doors myself. Closing it started helping the temperature in the new freezer too.

We also reinstalled a rebuilt pump that had been waiting on gaskets. It still needed to be aligned, and I planned to get that done the next week.

Remember that pump.

Friday: the day from hell

I started by running units through defrost in the old freezer.

Then I found that the racking crew had switched off half the units in the new freezer. I told them that was unacceptable. The person in charge said he didn’t do it. I told him it was one of them. Then I went and turned every unit back on.

Right about then, a motor started smoking in the compressor room. It was on a pump for the old chiller. We shut it down.

This is where Thursday paid off. That rebuilt pump had gone back in the day before, because the gaskets had finally shown up. It just wasn’t aligned yet. I got very lucky: the alignment contractor had a tech free, and he was on site within the hour.

In the meantime, the system went into chaos, because we only had one pump running. We limped along until the rebuilt pump was aligned.

Right about the time the pump was aligned, a call came in that the sewer was backing up on the dock. I ran down to check it out. There was, to put it politely, waste in the lines. I called the contractor who handles our lines, and luckily they got someone to come back out.

By the time I wrote my note that afternoon, the compressor room was running again and we were adding units back in as we could. So, there you have it. The day from hell.

Lessons learned

Contractors in a running freezer need rules, and someone has to check. Over two days we had a door cracked open to the outside and half the units switched off. Both cost us temperature. Tell every crew up front: don’t shut units off, don’t prop or crack doors, and talk to the engine room before you touch anything. Then walk the doors anyway.

A rebuilt spare is only a spare once it’s ready to run. The pump that saved Friday had been sitting on a shelf until its gaskets came in. If it had gone back in a week later, Friday goes a lot worse. Keep the small parts (gaskets, seals) for your critical spares on hand, not on order.

Know who can show up fast. A contractor who can get a tech to you within the hour is worth more than you’ll ever see on an invoice. Keep those numbers where everybody can find them.

Warm room? Look at the coils and the doors first. Thursday’s temperature problems were a frosted-over unit and an open door. Neither one needed the refrigeration plant to change at all.

Bad days stack. None of Friday’s problems were related. A crew, a motor, and a sewer line just picked the same afternoon. You can’t plan for that, but you can make sure the basics (spares, phone numbers, door checks) are already handled before it happens.

Write it down every day. I could only tell this story in order because I’d written a few lines every night. When something goes wrong later, those boring notes are the record of what actually happened.

This is from my own operation. Every plant handles pressure, pumps, and contractors a little differently, so take what’s useful and check it against your own equipment and people.

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