Case Studies - Cooling the Bath Care Products Manufacturing Plant

A large bath-care processing factory, based in Reading, produces a range of bath-care products. Its main processing area manufactures the base products which are then incorporated typically into aerosol-based shaving products.

This area was extremely uncomfortable due to the energy- intensive operations used in the manufacturing process. The remainder of the factory is air conditioned but this was considered both too expensive and impractical for this area

Thirteen down discharge EcoCoolers were installed as part of a balanced ventilation scheme. The coolers were installed in the place of glazed panels in the roof.

All the weight of the cooler is supported by the duct which is in turn supported by separate steelwork attached to the roof structure. Services are fed through the duct and then to the underneath of the cooler to minimise the number of roof penetrations.

Air is ducted to the processing area and discharged using six way plenums.

The system is integrated with an existing building management system which controls the operating time of the coolers. This system also controls the extraction fans and picks up the alarm output from each cooler. The BMS also controls the extraction fans.

The air on a flat or enclosed roof space can become significantly warmer than ambient. The adjacent image shows an in/out thermometer attached to an EcoCooler on the roof of the factory on a 200C day. It can be seen that there is a local 60C rise in temperature. A conventional ventilation system would therefore never be able to bring the temperature down to below the accepted comfort level of 250C in these conditions.

At this temperature reduction each cooler is providing approximately 40KW of cooling using 1.5KW of electricity and 80 litres of water per hour.