Energy Saving Tips for your Cold Store Room

How Crash Doors Can Help Reduce Energy Costs in you Cold Store

If the recent cold spell has taught us anything, it has shown that all it takes is a run of cold weather and our energy costs suddenly start to rise. We are lucky enough at Strip Curtains Direct to work with many companies who deal in food preparation and so have to run cold stores - and they are juggling with such operational costs on an almost daily basis. What our experience has shown is that there are some things you can do to help to keep your energy bills as low as possible: 

Reduce Door Opening and Closing Times

If you think about your fridge and freezer at home, then you know that you keep the amount of time the door is open to a minimum. This is because the longer the door is open, the harder the fridge or freezer has to work to keep the temperature low. Now think about this same thing but apply it to a large cold store. The aim is to keep the temperature as stable as possible, to reduce the pressure on the cooling element and therefore keep your energy costs stable. One way to do this is to install crash doors - this will allow people to enter and exit the room quickly while keeping the temperature stable.

Adopt Efficient Loading and Unloading Practices

In a busy food preparation business, there will be an almost endless supply of stock and demand for ingredients. This means that adopting an efficient loading and unloading practice is a must for keeping cold store room costs down. The more times you have to open and close the cold room door to put stock in or take stock out, the harder it is to maintain the correct temperature. Therefore, you should plan carefully your activities for the day that revolve around this area - making sure that stock is put in and taken out in as small a number of batches as possible.

Ensure You Are Operating at the Optimum Temperature

Cold stores will have an optimum temperature that they need to be kept at in order to ensure they are working at maximum operational efficiency. The company who supplied or installed your cold room should be able to tell you precisely what this optimum temperature is. Keeping the temperature where it should be will mean that your energy costs should be stable, and they shouldn't start creeping up.

Undertake Routine Maintenance

Just as with any other piece of industrial equipment, a cold store needs to have regular maintenance undertaken on it, to ensure it is working as it should. Keeping a close eye on the condition of your cold room, including things such as defective hinges and faulty seals, will mean that you stop cold air escaping or hot air filtering in. Keeping on top of preventable problems such as this will help to save costs and keep the overall running cost of the store at an acceptable level.

For more information on our crash doors or polar grade strip curtains, please call us today on 0333 999 7171 or send us an email to sales@stripcurtainsdirect.co.uk