Beat the Fall Rush: 5 Dental Maintenance Jobs to Avoid Downtime
Summer is an ideal time for dental practices to focus on the repairs, maintenance, and operational updates that often get pushed aside during the busier seasons. With potential schedule gaps and lighter patient volume, you have the opportunity to inspect equipment, address repairs, complete preventive maintenance, and update efficiency in the office. Taking a more proactive approach now, will help prevent downtime, as well as extend the life of your dental equipment. Here at American Dental Accessories, Inc. (ADAI), we have been helping practices with this for decades.
Here are five maintenance jobs worth doing before fall — and the parts you'll want on hand.
1. Sterilizer gaskets, bellows, and filters
An annual autoclave service should include a new door gasket, bellows, and filters, plus a visual check for cracking, peeling, or hardening around the door seal. A hardening gasket is the most common cause of a failed spore test on a sterilizer that's otherwise working well.
Installation Tip: Seat the new gasket at the 12, 6, 3, and 9 o'clock positions first, then work evenly around the circle. The excess distributes itself and small gaps close as the gasket heat-shrinks on the first cycle.
Practice Tip #93: Sterilizer Door Gaskets
2. Deep-clean your dental unit waterlines
If your lines have never been deep-cleaned, summer is the window. A waterline cleaner, such as Liquid Ultra Solutions, is made for use with self-contained water bottle systems - just confirm compatibility with your unit manufacturer before use.
To Use: Run the treatment three consecutive nights — Monday through Thursday works, because the solution shouldn't sit longer than 24 hours. Mix the two solutions in a heavy duty bottle, install it, and run the pink solution through every air/water syringe and handpiece line until visible at each outlet. Leave it overnight, flush clear in the morning, and repeat the next evening.
Practice Tip #78: Spring Clean Your Water System
3. Add a quick disconnect to your delivery unit
Making your ultrasonic scalers or any water or air source mobile, the installation of a quick disconnect allows you to do so. So if you’ve been delaying the installation of a quick disconnect, now is a good time to add one. Choose the correct size when installing these.
Sizing: 1/4" quick disconnects use 1/4" tubing (#11-55) with large sleeve clamps to lock the tubing on; 3/8" use 3/8" tubing (#11-57). For barbed fittings, 1/4" tubing (#11-55, 1/8" ID) sleeve-clamps onto a 1/8" barb; 1/8" tubing (#11-56, 1/16" ID) goes on a 1/16" barb with a small sleeve clamp to lock the tubing on — useful for etchers.
Practice Tip #4: Quick Disconnects (step-by-step)
4. Service the handpiece you've been babying
You know the one — the high-speed that whines, runs warm, or stalls when you push on it. Bearings don't get better with use. Maintenance is key to keep them up and running smoothly, which in turn will extend the longevity of the handpiece. Checking the PSI that each handpiece is running at and setting them to the correct manufacturer's specifications - correct pressure alone increases handpiece longevity.
Summer is the right time for turbine replacements (most Japanese-style heads accept a drop-in canister and take about 5 minutes to install) and for replacing worn chucks and end caps. Catching the bad one now is a lot cheaper than the emergency call mid-crown-prep in October.
Practice Tip #65: Maintaining Your Handpiece
5. Flush the evacuation system
High volume (HVE) and low volume (SE) valves see every aerosol in the operatory and rarely get attention until they malfunction and the lever starts to stick when turned on and off. A vacuum running noticeably below design pressure feels normal when your team is used to it. It isn't.
While you have the time this summer:
- Disassemble HVE/SE components and replace cracked and worn out o-rings
- Clean internal orifices with a cleaning bristle brush for HVE/SE
- Lubricate HVE/SE cylinders with a silicone lubricant
- Run an enzymatic cycle overnight through the full system
- Inspect the solids collectors, debris baskets, and amalgam separator canisters
- Check vacuum tubing for cracks where it bends near junction boxes
Practice Tip #52: Vacuum Valve Maintenance (video)
The parts most practices reach for this time of year — sterilizer gaskets, Liquid Ultra Solutions, quick disconnects, turbines, HVE/SE service kits — are now in one place.
On our website you’ll find other practice tips and technical assistance to help with your repair and maintenance needs, as well as the essentials that keep your practice going all year long. Prefer to talk it through? Call our tech desk at 800-331-7993 — same number since 1985, answered by a human.
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