Temperature control

Re: Temperature control

Rob Smith — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:01:03 GMT

[quote user="Laurence Webb"]

Our main fridge is a standard domestic one with a max/min thermometer recorded daily. We also got a vaccine fridge from Intervet free of charge last year that they were giving away at some event (I think my boss got it as BSAVA)

[/quote]

Hmm I think the freebies from Intervet are "coolers" rather than fridges? Inteded for use during consultations, and then the vaccines put back in a proper fridge inbetween? I could be wrong...

Re: Temperature control

Bob Russell — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:59:52 GMT

Sorry folks - ebay - brand new pharmacy fridge - delivery £8 - cost £200. Fallen off the back of a lorry? Probably literally as a few dents but has full manufacturers guarantee. Works a treat and drops back to required temp very quickly.

Re: Temperature control

Michael Woodhouse — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:05:24 GMT

[quote user="anne harford-flynn"]Who uses what type of fridge in practices???[/quote]

We have 2 glass doored pharmacy fridges, one is 4 foot tall and one is 7 foot tall!, Both were supplied FOC by drug companies.

Have you asked the companies you buy vaccine from if they can do anything?

Re: Temperature control

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:47:27 GMT

As I understand it ( ) a proper pharmacy refrigerator has mechanisms to rapidly return the temperature to the desired limits after the door's been opened, but the domestic (like washing machines and so on, built down to a price) does not.

And the external temperature display on mine is said to show the calculated temperature of a vial of liquid in the middle of the box, rather than just the air temperature wherever the sensor happens to be.

Re: Temperature control

Anthony Todd — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:41:48 GMT

[quote user="Clive Ansell"]

Why can you not use an ordinary domestic fridge? I've just bought one for domestic use, Zunussi, for £165.

[/quote]

In our experience both at home and in practice new fridges, with reduced insulation and friendly refrigerants give insufficient cooling.

We have a new well-recognised German brand at home which will just get down to 4C if set at the maximum 7 on the dial!

We had a problem with alleged vaccine reactions, blamed on poor storage temperatures; testing with datalogger showed that our very old should-be-dumped fridge was too cold and our new but cheap one couldn't get down to 4C!!

The manufacturer of the vaccine claimed that inadequate temp. control could cause "reactions" to vaccine and cited a WHO document.

This stated only that frozen vaccine caused a local reaction. I'll bet it would!

There are reasonably priced lab. fridges with a constant external display which we have installed and, really, should be best practice.

Free standing in-fridge thermometers are fine but must be calibrated and,looked at regularly!!

Clip your rabbits teeth with nail clippers if you're happy, but temperature monitored fridges should be best practice.

The days of keeping the box of vaccine on the window sill in the sun are really past us now....

Re: Temperature control

Clive Ansell — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:38:16 GMT

Why can you not use an ordinary domestic fridge? I've just bought one for domestic use, Zunussi, for £165.

Re: Temperature control

Rob Loxley — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:21:29 GMT

Have you tried a datalogger or max/min thermometer in your current "improper" fridge to see how it's performing?

RPSGB produce useful guidelines for monitoring fridge temperatures: http://www.rpsgb.org.uk/pdfs/restoolfridgetemp.pdf

We have this Bosch fridge, which has pull out drawers for easy access to everything, plenty of capacity, and temperature recordings seem stable:
http://www.bosch-home.co.uk/our-products/fridges-and-freezers/fridges/KTR18P20GB.html. With an electronic max/min thermometer with out of range alarm (e.g. http://www.medisave.co.uk/digital-fridge-freezer-thermometer-min-max-p-3659.html) it's a fraction of the price of a similar sized 'pharmacy fridge'.
Otherwise best bet would be some of the direct/budget medical supply companies, but given how few they sell I can't imagine there's a huge amount of saving to make on pharmacy fridges?

Re: Temperature control

Laurence Webb — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:46:20 GMT