For a safe and segregated work environment, it’s important to have a series of PVC strip doors that perform exactly as intended. In specially controlled coolrooms and freezers, that degree of performance proficiency assumes a critically important role, for the cold zones in here cannot be impacted by an exterior heat source. In light of this very real process-endangering threat, flexible plastic screen maintenance is a high-priority service.
Damaged PVC Strip Doors Corrupt Coolrooms
Picture a high-traffic area, a shielded threshold that uses one of these economic barriers. Manually operated pallet stackers push past the suspended plastic strips all day long. Then, with a blare of a warning klaxon, a forklift truck presses through the barrier. The PVC is abrasion resistant and determined to hold the line, but let’s face it, even the toughest plastics can’t last forever, not when they’re under attack like this. A strip breaks or drops loose from its overhead mount. Suddenly, the coolroom environment is compromised. A breeze pulls in a cloud of airborne dirt. The food-safe zone is exposed. Next, the cold temperature level is warming. The thermal envelope has been disturbed by the PVC strip curtain’s breach.
Assessing the Damage
Even the refrigeration unit is feeling a knock-on effect. The frosty environment is harder to sustain, so the cooling appliance is working harder. That means poorly maintained PVC strip doors cost businesses money. The utility bill is increasing because the cold zone lacks important insulation. In point of fact, the plastic barrier could be between an inside storage area and an outside loading pier, so this temperature differential might worsen as the day warms. Finally, the PVC does stop temperature leakages and keep cold zones intact. It also stops cross-contamination and floating particulates from hurting hygiene-sensitive work areas. But these fittings also act as workflow facilitators. In short, there are no lengthy pauses to roll up a heavy door, so there are no operational hindrances affecting the business runnings. However, should the PVC material accumulate enough scratches, it will no longer function as a safe secondary doorway. Visibility problems cause accidents, especially when there are forklift trucks roaming the area.
Maintain PVC strip doors and keep this visibility factor intact. Maintain the plastic curtains so that they overlap fully and preserve the cold environment inside cold work zones. Importantly, when this key secondary threshold is properly cared for, large-scale coolrooms and freezers sustain their low-temperature environments. When that chill is maintained, noise levels are controlled, utility bills drop, and the frosty status quo keeps right on going.
Temperature consistency is a factor that safely preserves the contents of a sterile environment. Think about a laboratory, a clinical domain. There are tissue samples stored in here, plus shelves of bacterial cultures. Every variable is controlled in here. Thanks to that carefully regulated laboratory setting, the biological samples behave in a predictable manner. Now, however, the lab freezer is breaking down. Temperature consistency has gone out the window.
Introducing Experimental Bias
The experiment is a bust. Those monitored results are meaningless because the intended thermal envelope became biased. That lab freezer or cooling chamber, designed to absolutely maintain a set temperature level, is no longer capable of producing a baseline artificial climate, one that acts as an experiment benchmark. Imagine a research project that’s recording this prejudiced data. In no uncertain terms, that experiment has gone awry because the sterile environment lacked an objective focal point. Uncontaminated by outside factors, the scientifically accurate device was still impacted by the poorly regulated temperature.
The Importance of Temperature Consistency
This problem hits medical facilities hard. When flu season hits, there are vaccines ready to mitigate the spread. What if the coolroom containing the vaccine phials experiences a temperature spike? The thermal transient either disables the potent curative or entirely neutralizes the stuff. A large pharmaceuticals establishment might absorb this costly mistake, but a small clinic could be ruined by this catastrophic incident. Besides the cost to the clinic, there’s the fact that there’s going to be a shortage of booster shots. Lives rely on those shots. Hospital labs or vaccine production facilities, the impact of a failing lab freezer, one that employs a sterile environment, will likely be felt keenly.
Determining Remedial Actions
First off, intelligently monitored freezers and coolrooms in laboratory situations must be calibrated. Obviously, the digital thermostat has to work as it’s supposed to, but that degree of functionality isn’t enough. Granted, in a food-based operation, a couple of degrees of thermal variance might be acceptable, but even a single whole degree of miscalibrated warmth could ruin the biological samples we’ve described today. No, not only must the device work as designed, it must be meticulously calibrated so that it provides a reliable thermal baseline.
Lives are lost when clinically accurate freezers and coolrooms don’t do their job. The environment inside these carefully monitored enclosures may indeed be sterile, but that key control element doesn’t mean much if the temperature envelope in here is in error. Have the device calibrated by a lab-compliant instrumentation correction lab, a place that adheres to the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) guidelines. Fortify that action by setting all temperature alarms and obeying all good storage practices.
C&M Coolrooms can create a custom solution for your specific needs. Talk to one of team members today.
