Coldstorage Facilities Can Lower Energy Costs by Choosing the Right Door

It’s vital that companies are aware of the latest trends in facility door uses and the cost, as well as productivity savings, they can obtain by using the right door for the right application. With the proliferation of imported products, comes a vast array of door products on the market, ranging from fabric doors to steel doors to plastic curtains to folding doors and even air doors.

With all the different types of doors out there, how does a facility manager decide which products are best for the facility?

Choosing the right door for your specific application is getting harder without first consulting someone you can trust, and that’s where we come in. With over 25 years in the industry, dealing with some on NZ’s biggest firms, we know what does, and what doesn’t work.

Here are a few tips from the team:

Seals & Insulation

Warehouse facilitators should check for seals and insulation. In cold storage applications, the better the door seals, and the better the insulation factor, the more savings you’ll get on cost of ownership. This is because you’re going to be able to recoup some of the upfront cost of the door over time, due to energy savings. If you have a door that doesn’t seal well, you’re going to get ice building up wherever the seal is bad – it’s a sign of lost energy.

Some sites have installed high-speed roll-up doors, composed of thin single-layer PVC fabric. These doors have no freezer door credentials, and no real R-value, and in order to prevent ice from building up on the freezer side, warehouses have to keep heat lamps on them that use anywhere from 15 to 30 kilowatts of energy. In addition, the heat generated by them must then also be removed.

Operating Speed

The biggest cost in a freezer door is really when it’s open and you let all the heat in and then have to remove it, the faster you can get your door open and then closed, the more money you’re going to save. This is why faster-moving doors are critical in a freezer situation. The faster they move the less chance they stand of being hit by a moving forklift and having their seals compromised, and the less energy is lost while it opens and closes. Look for a high-speed freezer door.

Durability & Impactability

Warehouse facilitators should keep door durability in mind. In every warehouse, the door is going to get hit at some point. It just depends on how abusive your situation is. Look for a door that has some kind of impactability built into it, like the Fastrax FR, which is an impactable door that features True Auto Re-Feed, meaning should the door get hit as it’s opening, it re-aligns itself again on the way up.

There are a number of advantages to using an impactable dock door-the main one being productivity. If a warehouse suffers the loss of a door due to collision, they can no longer use it to load and unload trailers. Loss of productivity means loss of income, as well as warehousing personnel that are standing around doing nothing and getting paid for it. Another advantage is the savings in maintenance costs.

Before settling on a door, we suggest you do your research. You should take a look at what you’re doing currently in terms of door designs and whether or not it’s working. You should also review how much use each door is getting, as well as the amount of damage they are subject to. Then consider what it is they wish to achieve with each door.

We have a wide range of different options available, and are always happy to help. Reach out to one of the team and we can guide you through the selection process.