Case Studies - Cooling the Office

Creative Displays limited in Thetford Norfolk are powder coating specialists. Their offices are based on an upper floor adjacent to the manufacturing area. The powder coating process in the building generates a large heat load in the summer months which gathers in the apex of the building. The offices were recording temperatures in excess of 40°C which resulted in very uncomfortable working conditions.

The solution was to use a single EcoCooler to supply cooled air to the ceiling void above the offices. The office has a floor area of approximately 400m. The EcoCooler provides 12 air changes per hour at maximum flow rate. At peak temperatures of 30°C the air temperature from the cooler is less than 23°C.

The ceiling void acts as a plenum chamber so no duct work is required in the roof space. The air is extracted though open windows and so avoiding the cost and complexity of extraction fans and associated duct work. One window is interlocked to the EcoCooler controls to prevent the cooler running against a dead end.

The cooled air is fed into the room though diffusers which replace the existing ceiling tiles. Because no duct work is used this allows very simple changes to the air distribution pattern in the room by moving the diffusers.

The running cost of this system is approximately 10p per hour and it provided a maximum cooling effect of 35KW on the hottest recorded day in Thetford.