How to Maintain Your Office Copier

If you’ve ever experienced a copier malfunction, you know first hand how quickly it can bring productivity to a standstill while you wait for a repair technician to get it back up and running. While some breakdowns are unavoidable, most of them can be avoided with preventative maintenance. To keep your machine running smoothly, we’re sharing some tips on how to maintain your office copier. 

Daily Copier Maintenance

Simply doing the following every day will go a long way in minimizing malfunctions with your copier. 

Turn Your Copier Off

At the end of the workday and before the weekend, make sure you shut the copier down. Even if it goes into ‘sleep’ mode when not in use, it’s still using energy that can reduce its lifespan over years. Turning it off will extend the life of your copier and also reduce your electricity bill. 

Let It Warm Up

When it’s time to turn your copier back on, it will need a few minutes to warm up and also perform a calibration. Rather than hitting the ‘copy’ button repeatedly, give it time to get back up and running before putting it to work. 

Load the Paper Properly

Paper jams are an annoying hassle, and repeated jams can damage the copier over time. Fortunately, most jams can be prevented simply by loading the paper properly. Instead of getting in a hurry and shoving paper into the tray or overloading it, take the time to make sure the stack of paper you’re placing in the tray is evenly aligned and neat. Sheets that have shifted or are out of place will jam the machine when they load. 

Also, glue from the packaging may stick to the paper, especially the top and bottom. Take a moment to fan the paper a bit to make sure none of the pages are stuck together because glue on the paper leads to a jam in the printer. 

Weekly Copier Maintenance

Just a few minutes each week on these simple copier maintenance tasks will improve the quality of the copier’s output and minimize breakdowns, malfunctions, and errors. 

Clean the Glass on Your Copier

Dirt, dust, and smudges on the glass of your copier can lead to unsightly errors on your copies, so it’s important to clean the glass both on the copier’s scanning area as well as the document feeder once a week. While a regular glass cleaner, like Windex is fine to use, never spray the glass itself as the cleaner can get inside and damage the electronics. Instead, just spray the cleaner onto a paper towel. 

Clean the Trays 

Offices create a lot of dust and debris, and even lower-quality paper gives off paper dust. All of this can build up in the machine, affecting your copy output quality and leading to an equipment malfunction over time. Once a week, or so, simply wipe off the paper trays and areas where the paper loads and exits to keep it clean. 

As Needed Maintenance for Your Copier

When you first lease or purchase a copier, make sure you read the manual to get a better understanding of what the error messages mean, how to troubleshoot problems, and what kind of maintenance your specific copier requires.

Empty the Waste Toner Reservoir

From time to time, your copier may show an error code that the waste toner reservoir is nearly full. If you don’t empty it regularly, the powder can end up on your prints or clogging the equipment. In most printers, the waste reservoir is fairly easy to access. Just be careful when removing and emptying the waste cartridge to avoid breathing in the powder or making a mess.

Call in a Service Technician

While there are several things you can do on your own to keep your copier operating as it should, there are certain maintenance tasks that should be left up to an experienced service technician. They’ll do a deep clean within the machine as well as perform an in-depth inspection to make sure there aren’t any issues that can lead to an equipment breakdown.  

Call CEI for Copier Maintenance Contracts and Service

For on-going copier maintenance, reach out to CEI to learn about our service agreements. In addition to making sure your copier is clean, maintained, and fully stocked with toner and supplies, we will also be there in the event of a malfunction or breakdown. With a rapid response time and 85 percent first-call fix rate, you can feel confident that your office copier is in excellent hands with our team. Call us today at 919-781-8885 or fill out the contact form to get started.