If your business needs a cold room, selecting one that fits your business best can be an arduous task for anyone. Primary concerns include using energy efficiency, maintainability, costs and maintaining stable temperatures through the years. Cold rooms come in different measurements and have different components and features to suit your requirements.

You must choose a cold room that fits all the required aspects. Our team at Aerovent will be more than happy to guide you through selecting the fitting cold room for your business. Here are some tips to consider:

The Purpose Of The Cold Room

The first thing you will need to consider is your purpose for your cold room. Do you need it for the hospitality industry, or do you need it for a laboratory for pharmaceutical requirements? An industrial cold room will safeguard farm produce, seafood, agricultural supplies or pharmaceuticals and preserve operational IT servers and equipment whose performance is affected by the high temperatures they generate.

Supermarkets, food processing, entertainment, chemical industry, hospitality and manufacturing industries have broad applications for cold rooms that are easy to maintain, durable, hard-wearing and clean.

The Capacity Of The Cold Room

The purpose of the cold room should determine the capacity of the cold room. How fast your stock depletes will determine the size of your cold room. The size should always exceed the amount of stock you wish to preserve. It should always have a lot of space on the shelves, racks and aisle space to roll up the bulk of food items.

The gap between the walls, volume of the products, pile and ceiling all need total attention. We recommend installing larger cold rooms 40% larger than you need rather than small cold rooms that provide the equivalent chilling facility. The standard height of a cold room is anywhere over 2 meters.

Smaller cold rooms mean there will be a time when your stock will be cramped due to insufficient space, and the products might degrade much faster due to insufficient airflow. However, it is essential to note that cold storage is recommended for running a restaurant.

The Temperature Range Required In The Cold Room

Different stocks require different ranges of temperatures of preservations. For example, items that need shorter duration, like fruits, vegetables, cooked meat, milk, natural products and sauces, must be stored at temperatures around 3°C to 12°C to prevent microbial action.

Meats, raw seafood and some dairy products require a temperature range between -3°C and 4°C. If you plan to store the raw food materials like meat, chicken, solidified veggies, bread, and pasties need to be maintained at temperatures between -5°C and -20°C.

Pharma organizations also employ pharmaceutical cold rooms for preserving a wide range of under-trial medicines that require different temperatures for storage.

Accessories and Features

  • The lighting: the cold room should always have adequate storage, preferably LED. The staff should be able to turn on the lights inside and outside the cold room. The bulb should be vapour-proof and unbreakable.
  • Insulations and panels: Cold rooms constructed on-site should always have a wall panel insulation rating of R-30. The panels of the ceilings, walls and floors are equipped with polyurethane for insulation from the inside, and the outside panels are stainless steel, but if you want to go for the less expensive option, you can go for aluminium which is more weather resistant.
  • The door: the cold room door should always open to the outside and should have a heavy-duty door closer and cam-lift door hinges. The cam will keep the door open only if it is opened at a 90° angle. It should also have an internal safety mechanism so people cannot accidentally lock themselves inside the cooler.

Choosing the fitting cold room for your business can be very complicated, especially if you do not know what you are doing. Our experts at Aerovent will help you choose the perfect cold room for your business while paying attention to the minor details you may miss when doing it yourself.

References and Resources