Walk/Ride-in Coolers or Refrigeration & Freezer Buildings

Drive in with forklift truck with four 600 lbs. 55-gallon drums on a single pallet (could have been a 600-gallon tote tank). Forklift goes straight up ramp and on back to rear wall to set load on grated elevated flooring and reverses straight back out. Returns with another load to be set on top of the first pallet, and so on, until there are pallets lined up front to rear five deep and two high. Next, the forklift starts another row of pallets to complete two rows of pallets, for a total of ten pallets, or forty 55-gallon drums per each 9' wide x 8' high door opening, or a total of twenty pallets (80 drums) under refrigerated storage in this 20' deep room. Overhead doors are up to 3-hour fire rated and 180 mph wind load capable and R-7 insulated - all U.L. classified. Vinyl curtain slats reduce loss of treated interior air during loading and unloading. Grated ramp floor reduces dirt being tracked into building and snow and ice build-up.
County Morgue refrigerated (45°F) Incoming Chemical Storage Room placed in corner of existing garage. "First in, first out" freezer with forklift at "in" door sending pallets down rollers to stop at "out" door. See close in photo next right. Personnel door allows entry to inspection aisle left of yellow safety rail. Vertical side rollers prevent pallets from jamming as they roll down sloped horizontal rollers. Cold and hot box (14°F and 212°F) R-30 insulated doors inside with 4 HRFR dropdown shutters. Flashing at base can be installed after installation.

Haz-Safe Buildings custom manufactures fire and blast rated hazmat-type refrigerated walk-in and drive-in coolers that are refrigerators or freezers, from small units to warehouses. Just about every hazmat feature on this website, from spill containment sump floors to fire suppression, is available in our cold storage units. Temperature ranges are from -50°F to controlled temperature chambers. Heavy duty exterior and interior finishes are provided, including porcelain enamel steel, stainless steel and galvanized steel. Several types of doors are available, including extra wide swing, sliding, bi-parting and motorized as well. Complete hardware and accessories can be specified, including multi-tier shelving and ramps. In desiging a proper refrigeration system, it is important to know:

1. How much product is to be stored in the building?
2. At what temperature is the product coming into the building?
3. How much product, on average, is brought into the building per hour, day, week, ect.?
4. What temperature do you want to maintain?
5. How fast do you need the product to be pulled down to optimum temperature?
Combination Haz-Safe walk-in refrigerator and freezer chemical storage building in corner of user's warehouse. Building designed as a two-unit modular building with each half passing through exisiting facility's small entrance, rolled to above location and put together with patented modular bolt-up hardware. Below is a close-up of what's seen in open door. Hazmat refrigerator/freezer building has R-30 insulated doors, floors, walls and roof with staggered tubular steel wall members providing thermal breaks. Refrigeration systems are designed to maintain 45°F in refrigerator room and -12° F in the freezer room. The building is 2-hour fire and 150 lbs feet squared blasted rated. Picture below is close-up of what's seen from open door.
User has stored chemical boxes stacked up in refrigerator room. Hanging from ceiling near back wall is the air handler evaporator unit. The beam-like "bump" on the ceiling is part of the fire rated joint between the two modular units that make up the bolted together building. Larger air handler/evaporator unit is required in the freezer room. Fewer user stored boxes exposes more of the porcelain enameled steel interior finished walls and ceiling. There is a painted steel sump floor joint cap dividing the elevated grated floor of the two modular units.

Fire Rating a Non-Rated Super-Insulated Door
Inside hot box photo above shows an open 5' wide x 8' high non-rated super-insulated R-30 door. The room is 6' wide x 10' deep x 9' high. Over the top of the door is the hood housing the roll-up slats of a 3 hour fire rated drop-down shutter (see close up photo above right). A fusible link will release door to drop, protecting the opening during a fire. Photo on right shows same building with a hot room (212° F) on the right and a freezer room (14° F) on the left, side-by-side in the same structure. Walls, floor and roof are R-30 insulated. Open the door, and a 4' wide x 8' deep roller will accommodate (2) pallets or tote tanks front-to-back.

Super Insulated Construction Exclusive Haz-Safe Buildings' Wall Design

Exposed aluminum backed 2" thick, R-14.4, Dow Chemical Thermax rigid polyisocyanurate rigid insulation board is pressed between vertical wall tubes. 7/8" deep horizontal furring strips are attached on top, creating an air space whose R-value can be added to 3/4" thick gypsum and 22 gauge steel sheet, for a total R-value over 15. Eye balling from inside building through 2" diameter hole in wall exposes 2" thick polyisocyanurate insulation board. Had the empty 7/8" air space been filled in with 3/4" thick insulation board, the total R-value of the wall would be 19.8. Temperature extremes with the cold freezer room on one side and a hot room on the other are easily handled by staggering the vertical tubes along the walls, which provides a second thermal break between the inner and outer wall surfaces. R-values in excess of 30 are available.

Combining Hazmat and Refrigeration Requirements:

It is relatively easy to design a building to meet the necessary technical disciplines for being blast rated, or to make a building fire rated or for use as a super insulated enclosure, or room or building. By themselves, all of these disciplines have to be carefully thought out. But, combine all these disciplines into one and the same structure, and it becomes harder. Haz-Safe Buildings easily accomplishes this without compromising the safety of the workers using the building. Look at this another way. It is relatively easy to make building as a hazmat or walkin cooler, refrigerator, or freezer. But the real trick is to combine the disciplines. Now, add into this mix a requirement for any or all of the above to be pre-manufactured and to be in multiple modules to be shipped in separate shrink-wrapped units and reassembled outside or inplant at the user's site anywhere in the world. Haz-Safe Buildings does all that and more, utilizing high quality materials and the latest components. For example, look below at how Haz-Safe Buildings bring these design disciplines together in just the construction of the walls that are blast, fire and, emphasizing below, super insulated.

Super Insulted Construction with Thermal Breaks

Unique construction designed to increase effectiveness of insulation values in Haz-Safe Buildings' walls by attaching steel horizontal furring channels on 24" centers (floor to ceiling) across the vertical tubular steel members. This is meant to hold applied gypsum panels away from being directly attached to the vertical tubular members, creating a thermal break capacity for slowing down the transfer of heat through the wall. Inserting 2" thick Dow Chemical Thermax rigid polyisocyanurate foam insulation board (R-14.4) and another 3/4" (R-5.4) into the 23" space between vertical members and horizontal channels brings total R-values up to 19.8, all within a 3-3/4" thick wall.
Same as first example above except each vertical tubular member is staggered along the entire perimeter of the exterior wall so that every other outer tube is supporting the building's 10 gauge skin. The other vertical tubes are 2" inside or off the 10 gauge plate and are supporting 7/8" deep, 20 gauge horizontal channels upon which the gypsum panels are attached. In addition to the above first example, a second 2" thick (R-14.4) layer of Thermax insulation board is pressed into the extra 2" deep air space, bringing the total R-valve of the wall to 34.2, all within a 5-3/4" thick wall.
Same as the second example above except on the outside portion of the vertical tubes, a horizontal 7/8" deep, 20 gauge furring channel is attached across the vertical tubes on 24" centers. The purpose is to attach gypsum panels away from being directly attached to the vertical tubular members, creating a third thermal break. Inserting 3/4" thick polyisocyanurate insulation in the 23" spaces between horizontal furring channels brings total R-values up to 39.6, all within 7-3/8" thick wall.