Breezair for cost effective spot cooling in bakery

Aircon Services have installed eight Breezair evaporative air coolers to provide spot cooling throughout the total area of the La Fornaia bakery in Park Royal, London, to improve working conditions

Aware that hot summer days were causing excessively high temperatures of over 30C at its bakery in Park Royal, London, specialist baker, La Fornaia, looked for a cost effective solution that would provide it with spot cooling and regular air changes.

Having dismissed conventional air conditioning as unsuitable in such an environment, and also prohibitively expensive, La Fornaia management chose to install Seeley International Breezair Evaporative Cooling, through specialist industrial cooling company, Aircon Services.

La Fornaia prides itself on being the bakery that launched ciabatta into the UK retail market.

A total of 300 bakers are employed in the 54,000 square foot custom-designed bakery producing an extensive range of quality, speciality breads for almost all the major multiple retailers' own brands as well as food service operators and wholesalers.

Despite mechanical ventilation to extract the heat during summer months, temperatures within the bakery reached uncomfortable levels.

As the building has a high roof, heat from the ovens, machinery and bakery products amassed under the roof and acted like a huge 'blanket' causing the temperatures within the building to reach between 6 and 10C above ambient temperature.

Aircon Services carried out an in depth site survey to ascertain the best method of improving the overall thermal comfort.

They suggested the installation of eight Breezair coolers to provide spot cooling throughout the total area of the bakery.

"We decided to initially install two Breezair coolers into the Bread Plant and Packing Area to assess their effect", said David Harrison, Projects Manager at La Fornaia: "These proved very successful, with staff commenting on how much cooler they felt".

The Breezair coolers have reduced overall summer temperatures by around 6C.

By introducing a steady flow of fresh, cooled air into the bakery, the coolers have greatly accelerated the rejection of hot, stale air from the building, thereby improving the working conditions of the employees.

Temperatures are controlled by programmable regulators, which provide four different control modes.

"Having measured the effectiveness of the Breezair coolers, we asked Aircon Services to install another cooler into our product assembly area", concluded David Harrison: "Then, as personnel in other areas of the bakery started asking if they could also have cooling, we have now asked Aircon Services to install a further Breezair cooler this winter".

It is a proven fact that more comfortable working conditions translate directly into profits for owners and shareholders.

The Breezair system is housed in a simple, clean, ultra-modern designed plastic casing specially developed to withstand all weather conditions.

It will never corrode or deteriorate and is warranted for 25 years against solar degradation! The Breezair state-of-the-art components include a remarkably innovative water distribution system, which delivers continuous, balanced water coverage to the four heat exchanger panels.

This world-patented system ensures maximum cooling efficiency and trouble free operation.

A purpose designed, aerodynamic fan provides a constant, even flow of air over all the heat exchanger panels to provide a welcome cool breeze with minimal noise and low energy consumption.

Other specialised components include a highly efficient synchronous water pump, designed and manufactured by Breezair, that guarantees constant and reliable cooling when most needed, and a long lasting variable speed fan motor that automatically controls fan speed to provide maximum comfort level control.

"Refrigerative air conditioning was unsuitable for this application as it would have cost an exorbitant amount to install, maintain and run ", said Johnathan Ruiter, Managing Director of Aircon Services: "The Breezair coolers are ideal for cooling large areas.

Installed outside the building, fresh, cleaned and cooled air is then distributed via ductwork to air diffusers and then into the production areas to provide temperature relief".

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