Case Studies - Cooling the Laundry

Guarantee Laundries Limited is a UK based company providing rental garments and laundry service to all industrial sectors. In the main finishing department at its factory in Corsham its employees were experiencing uncomfortable conditions due to high temperature not untypical of most laundries. Guarantee had used mobile evaporative coolers but were seeking a more permanent solution.

A single side discharge EcoCooling ECP16000 evaporative cooler is installed feeding a ducted air distribution system.

A side discharge system was specified for simplicity of installation and maintenance. The main building has a fragile asbestos roof with all of the associated health and safety problems.

The unit is mounted on a simple framework sitting on the flat roof of an adjacent building.

Manual controls are inside the main factory building giving five air speeds and the option of cooling or pure ventilation modes.

A galvanised duct takes the air from the cooler to the heart of the factory building. The duct is insulated to maintain the low temperature of the cooled air and to prevent condensation.

The sizing of the system is based on the principle of air changes per hour. In a laundry it is normal to ventilate at a rate of 35 air changes per hour. In this case this is applied to spot cooling of individual work stations.

Individual grills were fitted adjacent to each work station or area. These can be adjusted to give the required flow rate, direction and degree of diffusion required for the specific location.

In a laundry environment operator comfort is improved by providing ventilation, lower temperature air and air movement. On a typical hot day in the UK the ambient air temperature is reduced from 300C to under 220C using an EcoCooling evaporative cooler.