Everything You Need to Know About Cold Room Insulation

 

What’s a cold room?

For a very long time, cold rooms have been a major part of our life. Even if we see around nature, cold weather is best suited for animals to store their food for a long time. Humans have adopted this concept and now cold rooms are being used extensively. Cold Room, in simple words, is a storage facility. The commodities that are being stored in a cold room are beverages, food products, medicines, raw materials, etc.

Depending upon the exact storage requirement, there are different types of cold rooms. Along with time, we see a lot of modifications and customizations in cold rooms. One such modification was adding insulating panels. Now, what are insulated panels, and why they are used in cold rooms? What type of material are they made up of? Let us try to answer all of these questions.

What are insulated panels?

Basically, an insulted panel is a building material consisting of a shielding layer of inflexible core between two strata of structural board. The core can be developed from either XPS or EPS and the structural board could be plywood or cement. These panels are extensively used in cold rooms to maintain the temperature inside the structure, prevent air leakage, and making the structure stronger.

Multiple components of building materials are combined with SIPs. The application of these panels can be on flooring, external wall, and rooftop. We can use these panels to tackle many different problems. Most commonly the insulated panels are used in cold rooms and refrigerated vehicles. Across the globe, insulated panels are used broadly for thermal insulation.

Cold Room Basics

A cold room can store a variety of goods like frozen goods, delicate chemicals, etc. As far as the designing part is concerned, it is quite challenging. These are three elements that constitute a modern cold room:

Interlocking freezer walls: These walls are thermal panel walls and they are designed to eliminate any potential gap in the structure.

Flooring: The concept of flooring is to prevent heat transfer from the surface of the floor. Many flooring nowadays is double insulated and sealed.

Roofing: Roof is a sensitive area that shall be protected from heat transfer as it is mostly exposed to sunlight. As a solution, it can be double insulated to get protected from external heat.

In short, you can get all-round insulation for your structure by getting a thermal insulator plant installed by a genuine thermal insulator company. The thermal panels, walls, and flooring act as a good medium to keep an environmental balance. Materials have traits to transfer heat from each other.

For example, steel is metal that can be very hot and cold and it can transfer the same temperature to any surface around it. Here, a thermal insulation system comes into place which can prevent this heat transfer by keeping away the heat from the insulted are.

Types of Insulated panels used in Cold Rooms

• Expanded Polystyrene Insulated Panels
• Neopor Insulated Panels
• Polyurethane Insulated Panels
• Compressed Straw Core Insulated Panels

Installation of Insulated Panels for Cold Rooms

The installation majorly depends upon the size and type of cold room storage. Cold room panels are most needed in Cold Rooms having a very large area. There are cold room kits available providing a complete description of installing insulating panels. The following are the prerequisites in order to begin the installation process:

• Insulation Panels
• Measuring Tape
• Allen Key
• Screw & Screw Driver

The first step after collecting all the tools is to ensure the correct type of the panels as per your building. For that reason having the correct amount of thickness of PU panel is very important as they are going to get fixed in the targeted areas. Make use of the measuring tape and take proper measurements of the ceilings & walls to the floors.

All the measurements should be very accurate including the corner gaps and spots where the walls have any leakage or mouse holes. You can then cut the insulation panels as per the measurements so that they fit perfectly. Now the installation step comes. Begin with installing the panels at the corners and then cover the area to the center. The Allen key will help to fix the lock properly.

You need to ensure that the locks are tightly fixed as loose locks tend to come out slowly over time, resulting in gap and energy loss. Maintaining proper temperature in cold rooms is quite a challenge especially when you have no technical knowledge. If you are doubtful, then you can contact a thermal insulation company and they will provide you an experienced cold room professional installer to do this job for you.

Dimensions and features of Insulated Panels

Generally, they are available in small sections as it’s easy for transportation. Usually, the thickness of insulated panels that are going to get installed in cold rooms varies between the range of 4 to 12 inches. EPS is considered the most popular foam used in insulated panels that has a size of 3.5 inches of foam in a 4.5-inch thick panel.

The best way to use insulated panels in a cold room is while constructing your building. This way you could save a lot of extra costs. Construction your structure with insulated panels removes multiple building materials and proves to be a good way to save money.

Also, as far as the strength is concerned, it provides good structural strength and stability so that it also helps the building from deteriorating during a natural disaster. Also, this is eco-friendly so you are protecting nature as well.

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