Case Studies - Cooling the Shoe Warehouse
Stylo Barratt shoes are one of the most recognisable brands on the UK High street.
The West Yorkshire company services the 200 shops in the chain from a single distribution warehouse adjacent to the group Head Office.
The storage and distribution is spread over three levels of an extensive site in the north of Bradford.
In recent years the growth of the group has lead to greater stock holding and faster turn round of product.
The top floor of a three floor warehouse measuring 85 x 75 mts is the main picking area and, due to a large number of skylights and single skin roof, the working conditions were oppressively hot during summer
Stylo wanted an energy efficient and effective solution to cool the area down. Having previously explored the options of air conditioning which had been dismissed out of hand purely on installation costs, Nigel Booth (Group Property Manager) asked EcoCooling UK to produce a proposal that would both cool the environment down and increase air quality.
After discussions through consultants and contractors and a complete assessment of running costs and annual servicing cost, 15 EcoCooling ECP07D down discharge coolers and six extract fans were installed in May 08.
A basic control system ensures that the air input and extract systems work together and simple time clocks ensure that the system shut down at the end of each day.
The air is distributed down the main picking aisles and
over the unpacking and dispatch zones.
Site facilities manager Keith Pemberton confirmed that conditions in the warehouse during summer 2007 had been “beautiful” and there were noticeable decreases in absenteeism and a better working atmosphere both literally and metaphorically since the completion of the installation.
The graph below shows that on a 40°C day the ambient MKT is 33°C. The output of an evaporative cooler in these conditions gives a MKT of 25°C which meets the storage criteria for this range of pharmaceutical products.
