Mike Smith
Summer is coming soon, and with it, comes the need to beat the heat. Check out these 10 solutions that can help cool your facility and prepare your space for the warmer weather!
1. Guarantee a Tight Seal to Your Trailers
Rite-Hite Dock Seals and Shelters enclose the perimeter of the loading dock, keeping out contaminants and unwanted pests, from interfering with your operations. Sealing the outside of the dock also keeps out hot air that can cause employee discomfort during the warmer months. Consider the Eclipse Dock Shelter by Rite-Hite for total darkness around your trailers.
2. Eliminate Pesky White Light Around Your Dock Levelers
No matter how hard you try, birds, pests, and white light can still find a way to show up around your dock levelers and dock doors. With creative solutions like the Dock Corner Seal, you get one step closer to achieving full white light elimination. Pair this product with a dock seal kit by Rite-Hite and you might just keep inspectors and quality folks happy too!
3. Achieve Environmental Separation… Whether Your Dock Door is Up or Down
If you have a chilled dock, or strict GMP standards, there are things you can do to keep your openings sealed whether the door is open or closed. Air curtains create a blade of environmental separation when the dock door is open and can save you up to $1,200/year in energy savings! When your door is down, make sure the sides, top, and bottom are sealed with products like GapSealer by Rite-Hite and brush seals around the door opening.
4. Ventilated Bug Doors Let Fresh Air in for Employee Comfort
The BugShield™ Sliding Door or BugShield™ Roll-Up Industrial Door is a mesh screen door designed to block pests from entering into your facility while still allowing for open dock doors, fresh air, and ventilation. This product is also available in a convenient sliding model for wider doorways.
5. Move Large Volumes of Air with HVLS Fans
Unlike traditional ceiling fans, just one HVLS fan can cool big spaces as large as 31,000 square feet. They have been engineered to move large volumes of air very efficiently, saving energy costs and cooling workers on the ground floor. With high-volume, low-speed (HVLS) fans, a constant, gentle airflow provides evaporative cooling which can help lower temperatures up to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. For an added bonus, HVLS fans also provide consistent air movement that can help to reduce condensation in your facility.
6. Spot Cool Small & Challenging Areas
Install CoolMan® Zone Fans in aisles, small spaces and around obstructions to better move air throughout your facility. These small, cost-effective, directional fans create a concise column of air that provide cool air to areas in your facility that need it most, especially tight spaces. This product helps eliminate hot spots and increase worker comfort year-round. Pick modules, assembly lines, and racking aisles are common places where the CoolMan Zone fan would be a beneficial application.
7. Trailers Are an Extension of Your Building – Keep Them Cool!
Loading dock fans, such as the CoolMan® 2800 Trailer Fan, are specifically designed for manual loading and unloading environments by providing directional airflow into a trailer to help increase worker comfort and productivity by controlling temperatures inside the trailer.
8. Separate Environments with High-Speed Doors
High-speed doors, like Rite-Hite’s FasTrax®, have operating speeds up to 100″ per second (2.5 m/sec). These fast cycle times help maximize energy savings by controlling temperatures between areas in a facility. Fastrax Doors also reduce maintenance costs and increase safety by offering “soft breakaway” technology and impactability.
9. Discover the Power of Interlocking
If your facility has Dok-Commanders by Rite-Hite, what’s holding you back from interlocking? You can set your sequence of operations so your trailer restraint cannot be unlocked until your dock door is down. This prevents trucks from departing when the dock door is still open, letting in hot air and costing you on energy savings and climate control! You can also customize the sequence of operations in your interlocking system to optimize safety for your operations.
10. Schedule An Inspection by Your RDC Rep
The best thing you can do to prepare for summer is to be proactive. Click below to request a visit from your RDC Representative to walk your docks, check your door openings, and perform a white light inspection.