What Is A Cold Room Used For?

As the name suggests, a cold room is a room that has a lower temperature than normal. This doesn’t just mean leaving the windows open for it to get chilly, instead it is a room that is insulated and set to be a certain temperature. There are lots of reasons that a cold room could be used, but generally speaking they are used when a standard refrigerator just isn’t up the job.

Usually it is business premises that have access to cold rooms rather than people having one at home but that doesn’t always have to be the case. If you have a need (or want) to keep a large number of items chilled then a cold room could be exactly what you are looking for.

The good news is that when it comes to cold rooms you can have them made to your exact requirements, whatever those needs are. This means that you can have a small one made if you need to or you can go all out and have a large room converted. It really depends on how much you are going to be storing at one time. Cold rooms can be used to store more or less anything that needs to be chilled to avoid it becoming perished – food goods, drinks etc.

The most common place you will see cold rooms used is the hospitality and food industry. Businesses premises here tend to use them to store large amounts of food. This allows them to buy the items that they need in bulk and to be able to store them without worrying about them becoming perished. When you think about it, it does make sense because realistically there is only so much that can be stored in a traditional fridge.

When you look at getting a cold room set up and installed you’ll find that there are many different types to choose from. This is good news because it means that whatever you are looking for there will be something to suit you and your needs. One of the more handy features is the fact that cold rooms can come with a thermometer and thermostat set up. This allows you to have the room as cold or as cool as you need it and to change this later down the line. This is great news because it means that your cold room becomes a lot more versatile. There will be times when just keeping food items cool will be enough but there will be others when you really want your food to be more or less frozen. As long as you have chosen the right set up for your cold room then you should be able to adjust this as you need. However you do need to bear in mind the time it will take for the room to change in temperature, especially if it is a large room – so the change won’t be as immediate as you might like.

4 Common Air Conditioning Problems

While no one expects their air conditioning unit to break down or cause them problems, it is something that you should be prepared for. Hopefully the brand you choose to invest in will be reliable and not give you too many problems, but it is worth knowing what to keep an eye out for should the worse happen.

There are a number of things that could go wrong with your  unit, but 4 of the most common air conditioning problems that you could come across include:

Inside Coil Frozen

If you find that your air conditioning unit isn’t getting as cool as it should be, or that it is unreliable then this could be down to the inside coil being frozen. Although this can seem like quite a major problem it is something that happens quite often and is relatively easy to fix. An inside coil being frozen can be caused by an unclean air filter or a blocked return air ductwork. If you notice that this does start to be a problem then the first thing you need to do is switch of the system completely. You can look at getting a professional air conditioning company in to help with this but cleaning out the air filters could be a good place to start before you go down this route.

Faulty Wiring

If your air conditioning unit seems to be cutting out or experiencing power surges then this could be down to faulty wiring. If the wiring inside the system becomes damaged then this will result in the unit being able to get a consistent flow of power to keep it working as it should. This is definitely something that you should get a professional to look at, because it could be dangerous and even a fire hazard.

Low Levels of Refrigerant

Freon, the refrigerant in these systems is what is used to cool the air. If you find that the air is not getting as cool as it used to then this could be caused by low levels of refrigerant. If this happens then the likely cause is a leak and this is something that needs to be looked at. It can seem tempting to simply try and top of the levels of refrigerant by pouring more in, but this is not usually the answer – after all, if there is a leak then this will just continue to cause you problems.

Exterior Fan Not Working

The exterior fan has the important job of moving the heat from your room to the outside. If you find that your air conditioning unit doesn’t work properly or starts to overheat then this could be the cause of the problem. This is probably not something you can fix yourself unless you have air conditioning experience, but it is worth getting an expert to take a look and see what they can do for you.

Of course other issues can (and will) arise surrounding your air conditioning unit, but these are the 4 that you should definitely be keeping an eye out for!

How Much Energy Is Used By Air Conditioning?

Over recent years, as technology has changed and progressed so have air conditioning units. This means that the cooling devices are now more emergency efficient than ever. Whilst this is good  news it does mean that there is no definitive answer to the question ‘how much energy is used by air conditioning?’. There are lots of factors that could affect how much energy your air conditioner users, although probably none more so than how old (or new) your unit is.

How Air Conditioning Units Work

When you break it down an air conditioning unit doesn’t work all that differently to a fridge. Basically inside their are pumps and a series of tubes that create a cooling system. There is a set of serpentine tubing inside, usually made of copper that winds into two coils – an evaporator and a condenser. The evaporator coil cools the room and the condenser coil releases the heat that is created by the machine running and using up energy.

Of course, you don’t really need to know how an air conditioning unit works most of the time. As long as you can switch it on and it works as it should then that is really all you need to worry about.

The Energy That Is Used

When it comes to looking at how much energy is actually used, it can get quite complex. Most units that you buy now will have an energy efficiency rating so this will at least give you an idea of how much energy it will take and how expensive it will be to run.

If you look at the actual energy rating for an air conditioning unit you’ll see that they’re rated by BTU (British Thermal Units) and how many of these it can remove in an hour – with 12,000 BTU being the equivalent of a ton. The energy efficiency rating you’ll see us measured by look at the BTU per hour and dividing this by the number of watts the unit takes to run. You are then left with an EER (Energy efficiency ratio) which is used to decide how efficient it is.

Cutting Down The Energy Used

Of course if you do have an air conditioning unit, that doesn’t mean that you have to pay over the top to run it. As long as you run it in the right way, you can help to keep the costs down as low as possible. One of the biggest factors of this is only using it when you need to. Generally speaking these units cool the air quickly, so there is no need to leave them on in anticipation of it getting too warm – wait until you actually need it. Of course you can also take steps to stop rooms from getting to warm, such as closing curtains and blinds to prevent direct sunlight beaming through the window and making the room extra hot.

How Do Air Conditioning Units Work

Although you might not think that you need to know how an air conditioning unit works, it can be handy in case something goes wrong. When you have an idea how your unit works, you’ll be able to look into things in a little more depth if it stops working and perhaps be able to highlight what the problem is. If your air conditioning unit stops working as it should then you’ll be able to see what the symptoms of the problems are and this should hopefully point you in the right direction of what could have gone wrong.

The process requires an indoor unit, an outdoor unit (the pump) and piping to connect both. Through the piping the refrigerant flows from one unit to another. It is the refrigerant that absorbs the energy in one unit and releases it in the other.

The first part of your air conditioning unit is the indoor evaporator. This is where a fan blows the warm air from the room into the unit. The warm air then passes over a heat exchanging coil which contains cold refrigerant. This then cools the air and allows the cooled air to be blown back into the room and the cycle begins again.

Inside the unit you will have a set of copper pipe work and it is this which helps to move the refrigerant throughout the unit and keep everything cool. You also have an outdoor condensing unit. The refrigerant gas in the system is heated and then the outdoor unit can help to make sure that the heated air is released unto the direction of the indoor evaporator in order to cool the air. You’ll also need some liquid refrigerant which flows through to the indoor unit.

It can seem very confusing unless you know what you are doing. If you have an old air conditioning unit then it can be worth taking this apart and having a look inside. Once you realise which part does what it becomes much easier to understand. The basic idea of a unit like this is that warm air from the room is taken into the unit, it is passed over a number of copper pipes which cool the air and take away the heat and then the new, cooler air is pushed back into the room. When you look at it like that, it becomes much easier to understand.

If your air conditioning unit stops working for any reason then the first thing you can check is that the air is flowing through as it should. Sometimes dirty pipes and blocked air filters can mean that the air doesn’t flow as it should and therefore does not get cooled. If you check all of this and there still seems to be a problem then it could be worth calling out someone to take a look at this for you. There are a few issues that could cause your unit to stop working as it should, but lots of these are also relatively easy to rectify.