Preventative Maintenance for Ceramics Departments in the Philadelphia Area
Has a busted kiln ever wrecked your firing schedule? Has an unexpectedly finicky pottery wheel altered the direction of your lesson plans? Leave it to The Ceramic Shop to ensure that your important studio equipment remains reliable and working when you need it to. If you are a teacher, department head, or facilities director, at a school or university that supports a ceramics department, you may want to consider enrolling in our Preventative Maintenance Program.
Preventative Maintenance can include whatever you need it to – from annual kiln inspection and maintenance to wheel diagnostics to examination and upkeep of other equipment such as slab rollers, and pugmills, we can keep your busy art studio in great condition, and we can customize a course of action to fit the unique needs of your school. See below for a sampling of prices, and please don’t hesitate to contact us for a direct quote.
If you are located within a 2-hour distance of Philadelphia, consider adding this service to your studio maintenance plan.
Kiln inspection: $145 for the first kiln, and $70 for each additional kiln (within the same school district)
Wheel inspection: $95 for the first wheel, and $60 for each additional wheel (within the same school district)
What does a Preventative Maintenance Program visit entail?
For KILNS, our first point of inspection will be your power supply. We will make sure that your kiln’s wiring matches the power supply in your facility. Although this may seem like an obvious first step, you would be surprised at how often schools have kilns malfunction or fire improperly due to the very simple issue of the equipment not matching up with the power! If you have ordered a kiln especially for the space in question, this shouldn’t be a problem, but here at The Ceramic Shop we often encounter schools or businesses that feature older kilns originally intended for a different facility.
In addition to ensuring that the kiln is attached to the proper power source, we also check the distance from the power source to the kiln. Kilns that are plugged in with a long cord may experience a drop in power, leading to firing issues. As a part of our Preventative Maintenance Program, we can take care of that for you. On a related note, we also do a thorough examination of the outlet into which the kiln is plugged. We check the outlet for looseness, which can result in heat build-up, and can make recommendations regarding the installation of an electrical shut-off box.
Finally, we open the front of the kiln and check the power that is flowing to the kiln. It can be particularly important to do this with older kilns or kilns that get a lot of use -- while there will often be a known service record of kiln repairs, in many cases there simply isn’t.
In a kiln inspection, we do a thorough check of your kiln’s elements. We do a burn test to ensure that each element is indeed receiving power, and if so, how much. We also do a visual examination of your elements, from which in turn we can provide you with a rough estimate of when you might expect to get your elements changed. To back this up, we also check the resistance of each elements using a multi-meter.
Next, we inspect the control box. If you unscrew the cover plate of your kiln’s control box, you will see a complex network of wires and connections. Here, we check to make sure all of those wires and connectors are in good shape and not rusted out -- which can, of course, lead to problems. If you have a kiln with a cone sitter, this set-up is directly tied in to your control box, so we inspect every element of that, as well. Certain kiln sitter parts will wear out over time, and they are frequently a simple fix -- if you know what to look for.
After this, we inspect your kiln’s thermocouple. This is the thermometer-looking probe that you can see inside of your kiln, and it’s a very important piece of your kiln’s mechanism, as it measures the heat inside and relays that information back to your kiln’s control box. Most thermocouples are designed to last for a great many firings, but there are factors that can affect their performance. If your thermocouple has been bumped by a kiln shelf during loading, for example, or if it has withstood too many stressful firings, it may not be operating as it should be. We can make sure that your thermocouple is working up to speed -- and of not, we can replace it.
Next, we look at the body of the kiln. Starting with the lid, we examine the bricks and metal that make up your kiln. Are the bricks loose, or cracked? If so, this can lead to heat escaping from your kiln -- which can lead to misfirings and unnecessary stress placed on the rest of your kiln’s parts. In such cases, broken or crumbling bricks may need to be replaced -- and we can let you know when and how that can happen. The exterior of the kiln, including the kiln stand, will also be examined.
Finally, we examine the way in which your kilns are vented. Although this factor isn’t always tied to to your kiln’s usability, it is directly related to safe and best firing practices. Some clays and glazes will off-gas fumes that are not healthy to inhale; properly venting your kiln can take care of this. Although many newer kilns are required to be correctly vented upon installation, some ceramics departments with older equipment or older set-ups might not feature an up-to-date system. We can inspect this for you and make recommendations.
As you can see, a lot goes into each kiln inspection.
For WHEEL inspection, we make sure that the five major components of your wheel -- the wheel head, the belt, the motor, the control box, and the pedal -- are all is working order. Much like the examination of your kiln’s hardware, we do a thorough check to make sure that all components are in good shape and if not, we look into replacement options.