What a Used Commercial Fridge Is Actually Worth, and How to Sell It

Refrigeration loses value faster than anything else in a commercial kitchen. A stainless table from 2010 is still a stainless table. A fridge from 2010 is a liability with a compressor in it, and two cabinets that look identical on a forecourt can be hundreds of pounds apart.

Most sellers price on age, brand and how clean the stainless is. After 25 years fitting and stripping out this kit, here is what actually sets the number.

Start With The Data Plate

Every piece of refrigeration carries a rating plate, and equipment containing fluorinated gases has to be labelled with the refrigerant type and quantity. Look inside the door, behind the kick grille, or on the rear panel by the compressor deck.

Take a torch and photograph it. You want the model, the serial, the electrical rating, and the line beginning with an R and a number. That last one is the refrigerant, and it is the most useful fact about the machine you are selling. The charge weight is on that plate and nowhere else.

What The Refrigerant Tells A Buyer

Refrigerants are rated for global warming potential. Great Britain regulates them under assimilated Regulation 517/2014, enforced by the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases Regulations 2015, and the Government publishes the numbers. R404A is 3,922 and R507A is 3,985. R134a is 1,430, R452A 2,140, R448A 1,386, and Chemours puts R449A at 1,397. R290, propane, is 3 and is not a fluorinated gas at all. Carbon dioxide, R744, is 1.

Here is why a buyer cares. Since 1 January 2020 it has been prohibited to place a new commercial fridge or freezer on the GB market containing a gas rated 2,500 or more, and since 1 January 2022 that threshold dropped to 150. So an R404A cabinet is not just old. It is on a platform that has closed, and the gas sits under a national phase down limiting how much reaches the market each year. Price it accordingly, because they will read the plate at the viewing. Our buyer's guide to used commercial refrigeration is the same checks from the other side.

The Rule That Catches Cold Rooms, Not Cabinets

There is a service ban and it gets misquoted constantly, so let me be exact. Since 1 January 2020 it has been prohibited to use virgin fluorinated gas rated 2,500 or more to service refrigeration equipment with a charge size of 40 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent or more. Reclaimed and recycled gas can still be used until 1 January 2030.

For R404A, the Government states that 40 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent is 10.2 kg of gas. A plug in cabinet holds a small fraction of that, so the ban does not reach an upright fridge, a counter or a prep station. If somebody tells you your fridge is illegal to service, they have not read it.

Where it bites is one level up. A walk in cold room or a remote pack serving several cabinets can exceed 10.2 kg, and on R404A that is a real constraint on whoever buys it. Before you price a walk in chiller or cold room, find out what is in it, because a serious buyer will.

Leak checks split the same way. Hermetically sealed equipment needs none unless it holds 10 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent or more, about 2.6 kg of R404A or 7 kg of R134a on the Government's figures. A cabinet is nowhere near that. A pack may well be, and those records run five years, so ask for them.

What A Buyer Checks After The Plate

The condenser first. If it is matted with dust and grease, that machine has run hot for years. Pull the grille and clean it before anyone views.

Then the seals. Shut the door on a sheet of paper and pull. If it slides out freely the gasket is finished. Seals are cheap, but a perished seal on every door says neglect, and neglect gets priced in. Check the hinges, because a dropped door will not seal again without work.

Then they listen. A compressor that starts hard, or a fan with a bearing rumble, is heard long before it is seen.

The Unit That Has Been Switched Off

A machine that sat off through a closure is an unknown. Seals set, oil settles, and a compressor that was tired when it went off often does not come back. A buyer is not paying for what it did in service. They are paying for a machine that has to prove itself again.

The fix is cheap. Run it 48 hours before you list, put a thermometer in it, photograph the reading, and say how long it has run. A cabinet you can show holding temperature today is worth materially more than one you last saw working in March. If you cannot power it up, price it as untested and say so.

Moving It Without Killing It

A compressor sits in oil. Lay the machine down and that oil travels into the capillary tubes, and on start up the system blocks. SMEG UK's service guidance is that a fridge or freezer transported upright should stand 6 hours before switching on, and one carried on its side or back should stand 24 hours.

So it travels upright, strapped, doors taped, shelves out, and the standing time goes in writing before collection. If the buyer plugs it in on the tail lift and it fails, you are the one having that argument.

What The Law Asks Of You As The Seller

Less than people fear. The refrigerant bans are bans on placing on the market, which the regulation defines as supplying or making available in Great Britain for the first time. On that wording, reselling a cabinet already lawfully sold here is not a fresh placing on the market. That reading follows from the definition in the legislation, and the Government has not published guidance specifically confirming the position for second hand equipment. Importing used equipment into GB would be a first supply and would be caught.

The one hard duty covers equipment that is not hermetically sealed. A remote cabinet, a condensing unit or a cold room pack may only be sold to an end user where evidence is provided that a certified undertaking will do the installation. For a plug in cabinet, Government guidance is that no customer checks are required. You are not obliged to hand over refrigerant history either. Hand it over anyway, because it sells the machine.

One thing is not optional. Recovering refrigerant requires an F gas certificate held by the individual doing the work, awarded by bodies such as City and Guilds, BESA and LCL Awards. Venting gas deliberately is a criminal offence, and other breaches carry civil penalties of up to £100,000. Scrap it instead and a certified engineer still takes the gas out first, and treatment sites are told to prioritise reuse of whole appliances over shredding. Which is the argument for selling it rather than skipping it. Energy labelling does not apply to second hand sales unless the item is imported from outside Great Britain.

Photograph The Answers, Not The Machine

Every question a buyer has to ask costs you a day and some negotiating room. Photograph the plate, the cleaned condenser, the seals, the interior with shelves in, and a thermometer showing the running temperature. State the refrigerant, the years in service, the last service date, plug in or remote, and the dimensions with the door swing. Our guide to writing a listing that sells covers the rest.

Before You List Your Refrigeration

• Data plate photographed, refrigerant and model recorded
• Condenser cleaned, photographed after
• Seals tested with a sheet of paper, hinges checked for drop
• Run 48 hours with a thermometer reading photographed
• Service and F gas records gathered for the buyer
• Walk ins and remote packs: charge and refrigerant confirmed
• Standing time in the listing, 6 hours upright and 24 hours laid down

Refrigeration is the category where knowing your own machine pays best, because it is the one where buyers assume the worst. Read the plate, clean the condenser, prove it runs cold, and you are selling a known quantity instead of a gamble. That is BUY • SELL • SAVE doing its job.

Ready To Sell Yours?

Put the plate photo and the refrigerant in the listing and let the machine sell itself. List your refrigeration on CaterBids.