Businesses that revolve around food storage, retail, or production have to install coolrooms so they can conduct their intended daily operations. Coolrooms may look like large freezer areas, but they do not necessarily freeze food items and products.
Coolrooms can help maintain a consistent stable temperature just to ensure that the items do not spoil or get damaged. This specific benefit allows customers or clients to be safe from any dangerous effects of food spoilage or the presence of microbes. Additionally, coolrooms can also precool products like drinks, juices, and other things before they are transferred to their corresponding shelves. Precooling products can easily provide customers with products that are meant to be cold for immediate consumption.
Given the benefits of coolrooms to businesses, business owners must do everything just to monitor and increase their efficiency. If you own a coolroom, then you may want to conduct the following activities.
Check Energy Consumption
To effectively increase coolroom efficiency, you must start with your energy consumption. Checking and monitoring your energy usage can easily provide you enough data on how your coolroom works during operations. A monitoring system can be installed within your power connections to determine energy consumption, detect early signs of failure, and control energy usage. A coolroom that uses more energy than its recommended energy levels may be a sign of failing components.
Assess Operating Temperatures
Aside from energy consumption, another element that must be monitored regularly is the operating temperatures of the coolroom. The temperature of a coolroom is crucial in maintaining the quality of food products. At the same time, this specific element can directly affect the coolroom’s consumption of energy. The lower the temperature is, the more energy a coolroom will consume. To monitor the temperatures of your coolroom, you must install a room temperature sensor and check it regularly. It would be ideal for your coolroom to run at temperatures that are determined by its manufacturer.
Improve Door Situations
One factor that can affect both the energy and temperature levels inside the coolroom is the activities related to its doorway. The ambient air outside the coolroom is filled with moisture and energy, while the air inside the coolroom is dry. The difference between these two significantly affects energy consumption and operating temperatures. When the air leakage becomes high, the optimal temperatures may not be reached, which may result in the accumulation of frost or ice and the inability to reach optimal temperatures quickly.
To improve door situations, the door must always be closed appropriately. Both door curtains and door seals must also be in good condition for them to work optimally.
Optimise Internal Air Flow
The air inside the coolroom can be dry. Moreover, it must also circulate the walls and product so that the coolroom temperature and its energy usage will be optimised. The air inside the coolroom also serves as the main way to prevent heat energy from going out of the product packaging. To maintain efficient internal airflow, your products must have some spaces between them. Stacking them against the wall can easily allow heat to penetrate their surface and lead to spoilage. Fixtures and products that are blocking fan outlets or evaporator returns must also be removed for a more optimised airflow. The energy consumption, temperature levels, and internal airflow are only some of the elements that must be constantly checked and monitor to increase coolroom efficiency. Other elements that must be checked include lighting, type of refrigerant, and many more.
Commercial refrigeration units have been utilised by various establishments and facilities for a long time now because of their value and purposes. They basically regulate the temperatures of food products to effectively preserve their freshness and quality. Keeping food products under cold temperatures helps slow down any bacteria activity that is taking place inside them and causes food spoilage.
One part of commercial refrigeration that is vital in its whole operations is the evaporator fans. These fans are typically found in the freezer compartment of refrigeration units, which are intended to maintain constant airflow within them. They ensure that the air is moving and flowing over the evaporator coils and that the refrigerant can effectively absorb any heat from the refrigeration unit.
Functions of Evaporator Fans
As mentioned, the main function of evaporator fans is to keep the air moving inside the refrigerator unit. They receive air from the evaporator coil and subsequently circulate them inside the whole unit. These fans work closely with the damper assembly of the unit, which controls the amount of cold air being supplied into the unit’s fresh food compartment.
Evaporator fans function very closely with the compressor. But once the evaporator fans start to malfunction, it will be difficult for the refrigeration unit to maintain its needed temperature since the cold control sensing bulbs will have to signal the compressor to work for a much longer time. Even after compensating for any possible issues of the fans, the compressor will eventually reach its own limits. The evaporator coils will consequently freeze over, which then increases the overall temperature of the refrigeration unit.
Once the evaporator fans, compressors, and coils become non-functional, your whole refrigeration unit will then obtain increased internal temperatures, accumulate abnormal amounts of ice, and acquire many more damaged components.
Maintaining Evaporator Fans
To avoid encountering these issues, you must maintain the evaporator fans of your refrigeration unit regularly. One type of maintenance that you can do is to defrost your refrigeration properly. Without defrosting properly, you are risking your evaporator to ice up and obstruct the blades. Your energy bills will also increase significantly if you do not defrost appropriately.
And before you decide to have a professional check your refrigeration unit, you must first assess its condition by switching off its power and have a look at its evaporator fans. If you have spotted some things that prevent the fans from moving, then you must remove them right away. Afterward, you must remove any ice build-up, dirt, and debris from the coils by wiping them with a cloth soaked in hot, soapy water. Otherwise, if there are no blockages that prevent these fans to move, then your unit should be fixed right away. At this point, professionals may have to replace your evaporator fans since they might already be old or weary. Replacing these fans will significantly bring back the functionality of your refrigeration unit. If you have concerns about your evaporator fans, just give us a call at C&M Coolroom Services.
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