What Are Insulated Curtains and Why Should They Be Used In Cold Rooms?
Many cold rooms, walk-in fridges, and walk-in freezers are fitted with heavy, insulated doors or thin plastic strip curtains to insulate the cold room and prevent the movement of air from one area to another. If allowed to form natural convection currents without a barrier, air will flow into and out of your refrigerated area, carrying warmth with it and distributing the efforts of the cold room cooling unit too far to be effective.
While large, insulated cold room doors are excellent in terms of insulation, they are less than ideal in high-traffic areas, as they need large amounts of clear space to swing open and closed every time a member of staff needs to move from one area to another. This inflexibility means that a large gap in your insulation must also be opened for a member of staff to pass through, where a strip curtain would not form anywhere near as large a break in the insulation, and require nowhere near the same space and effort to open – your staff could simply walk through them!
On the other side of the equation, plastic strip curtains are flexible and space efficient, as well as cheap, but are comparatively poor insulators. They also wear out relatively quickly, sometimes losing individual strips and creating semi-permanent gaps in your insulation – or forcing you to invest in urgent maintenance at inopportune times. For many businesses, this trade-off is acceptable to ensure a cheap door, but it is really the cheapest option? Considering the low insulating power, frequent need for maintenance and larger vulnerability to wear and tear experienced by the relatively flimsy PVC strips, it may actually be more cost effective to invest in a sturdier, longer lasting and more efficient insulator.
Both of the issues suffered by these two barrier types can be resolved with the use of a barrier form which incorporates the strengths of both and the weaknesses of neither – an insulated curtain like the Cold Stop® curtains available at MT Cold Storage Solutions. These curtains combine the insulating qualities and durability of a heavy door with the flexibility and space-efficiency of a curtain to create an elegant solution to your insulation needs. While they combine features from two different types of insulating barrier, they don’t compromise on any aspect of their design, providing high performance and reliability across the board and giving you an insulating doorway you can depend upon.
Insulated Curtain Design and Properties
The insulated curtains available for sale from MT Cold Storage Solutions are able to provide minimum energy savings between 25% and over 33% compared to plastic strip curtains – an impressive saving which will certainly be noticed in your business’ energy bills! Insulated curtains are able to keep out vastly more heat than their predecessors, providing unmatched insulation power for a curtain and preventing your refrigerated area from becoming a heat sink for the surrounding areas. With this increased insulative power comes a decrease in energy expenditure and a decrease in wear and tear on your refrigeration equipment, which don’t have as much heat sinking to contend with in their normal operations.
This allows your refrigeration unit to quickly reach an optimal internal temperature for the cold room and maintain it with minimal expenditure; something which is reinforced by the low-maintenance nature and inexpensive initial investment involved with a Cold Stop®. Easy to wipe clean, hard to wear down or damage and very easy to repair in the event of accidental damage, a good insulated curtain will save you money on several fronts – costing less for installation, maintenance, and energy consumption as you run your cold rooms or chillers.
The insulated cold room curtains for sale from MT Cold Storage Solutions are user-friendly and slide easily to one side, with soft material covers, and are very firmly attached to their moorings, preventing accidental damage by staff.
Field trials of the Cold Stop® curtains also show a viable lifespan of 500%-600% the lifespan of plastic strip curtains, while remaining light, flexible and resistant to splitting, protecting your insulation at all times and cutting down your repair and replacement costs considerably.
So long as you have space which the curtains can slide when opened, these cold room curtains are an ideal solution to your insulation needs.
Unlike PVC strips, the Cold Stop® cold room curtains come fitted to your door specifications, ensuring a tight fit and preventing any unnecessary heat intrusion, with a patented header arrangement that allows seamless opening and closing in even tight spaces. Quick and easy to install and replace, insulated curtains from MT Cold Storage Solutions come with deep, clear windows, helping avoid accidents and allowing your personnel to know what’s happening at all times.
Benefits of Using Insulated Curtains in Your Cold Rooms
Control Room Temperatures
The main fact is that insulated curtains are perfect for keeping your cold room at the temperature you need it to be. Many industries depend on the contents of a cold room being kept within a certain temperature parameter. An example being that meat storage areas must keep meat content considerably fresh in order for it to still be eligible to be sold.
Thermal insulated curtains help in containing the temperature and contribute to restricting cold air for escaping when possible. This is mainly obtained by the unique ‘cold lock’ system insulated curtains. This ensures that the curtains fit neatly and effectively to the floor and ceiling. Due to this, the temperature in your cold room is given more chance of staying within your desired parameter, granted your cold room doors and insulated curtains are used appropriately.
Money Saving
With insulated curtains, you will be delighted to learn that they will in fact save you in terms of money you invest into energy costs. The use of insulated curtains can cause minimum energy savings of 25% in chillers, 33% in freezers.
From the added benefit of insulated curtains, you are lessening the use of energy. This is due to insulated curtains keeping existing cold air in the cold room for as long as possible. This allows our company to invest your money elsewhere without having to worry about energy costs as much as before, again, provided that the curtains and cold room doors are used and closed appropriately.
Reduces Noise and Easily Cleanable
The use of insulated curtains also assists in the hygienic and respective sides of the working environment. Thanks to the ‘cold lock’ system incorporated into insulated curtains, noise generated from mechanisms creating noise inside your cold room is blocked off more effectively. This helps in giving your employees a quieter working environment to operate in.
The insulated curtains are also found to be easily cleanable or replaced if needs be. The curtains themselves are soft, user-friendly and low maintenance. This enables employees to carry on with their work without constantly worrying about the hygiene of their working environment.
Easy to Move Through
Insulated curtains take health and safety into account. As mentioned before, the curtains are soft, user-friendly and low maintenance. For when employees are hauling storage contents in and out of cold rooms, they will find that they needn’t worry about passing through insulated curtains due to the soft material being easy to move through.
Thanks to insulated curtains there is also a decrease in hazard potential. Insulated curtains actually lessen the chances of floor ice and hazards associated with it. This too gives employees peace of mind in knowing they are less likely to be endangered through a form of hazard when working.
When you are a customer with MTCSS, you can be sure that our variety of thermally insulated solutions, namely insulated curtains, will be made to fit your every need. They will be manufactured to lessen energy costs, hazards and any form of worry you have about the entrance to your cold room. We stock a wide range of insulated curtains on our e-commerce shop, click here to see more!
If you are interested in cold room insulated curtains or you would like more information about the curtains available from MTCSS, you can get in touch at any time by calling our head office telephone number, 01886 833381, by emailing us using our email address, sales@mtcss.flywheelsites.com, or by using the contact forms on our site.
If you are looking for a cold room curtains solution which provides the maximum return on investment in the minimum time, then call MT Cold Storage Solutions today on 01886 833381 – the experts on the other end of the line have decades of industry-leading experience and will be happy to help you find the ideal insulating curtain for your business needs, cutting your energy expenditure and increasing efficiency! Why not get in touch today?