Ways to increase energy efficiency in cool rooms?
The three major factors influencing the energy efficiency of cool rooms are cool room design, system maintenance and equipment upgrades.
Cool room design-
A number of design elements can reduce energy use. The orientation of packing sheds, cool rooms, docking facilities, pre-coolers, offices and surrounding areas can have impact. Generally, cool rooms are best placed in the southern ends of the property with any openings facing towards the south to have minimal interferences with the sun, using shade as a consideration. Trees or other shading structures may also assist with this.
Automated doors are a good option to reduce loss of controlled air when loading and unloading. This should be considered in the design/ budgeting process. You can also hang strip curtains as a cheaper alternative to keep the controlled air inside the facility as much as possible.
A correctly built cool room will decrease costs due to being well insulated, without any air leaks. It is important to engage an experienced, professional and quality builder to ensure this occurs.
System Maintenance-
With little planning and minimal financial outlay you can increase the energy efficiency of your cool room easily with regular maintenance checks. This will ensure things are running smoothly, ensures longer service life of the equipment and ensures a lower risk of breakdowns or issues.
Important things to consider are checking door seals and insulation, ensuring temperature thermostats are correct, checking for any damage to walls, pipes or other obvious problems, cleaning of condensers and fans, checking for any undue noise or vibrations and checking all safety controls.
Consider the benefits of modern equipment upgrades as they employ newer technologies that tend to have more energy efficient motors where practical and cost effective as well.
If you need information or advice about the best cool room design and system maintenance for your facility please do not hesitate to give us a call at KB building group on ph. 1300 KB KOOL.
FM Approved Insulated Panels
What is Factory Mutual (FM) Approval?
FM approval is the independent testing body of the international insurance company, FM Global.
FM approval deploys scientific research and testing to ensure that products comply with the highest safety standards available. These standards help you reduce the chance of property loss due to fire, weather conditions, and failure of electrical or mechanical equipment.
They incorporate nearly 200 years of property loss experience, research, and engineering results, as well as input from consensus standards committees, equipment manufacturers and others. If products pass the strict tests, the laboratory grants it the “FM approved” mark.
Why is it essential to choose the FM approved insulated panels?
In the current market, fire prevention and reduction of fire risk is the most critical issue faced by insulated panels. If a product is FM approved it conforms to the highest national and international fire standards. In Australia, more and more businesses are choosing to build their facilities using FM approved insulated panels for the following reasons-
- They are recognised by insurance companies which contributes to reducing the overall building insurance cost significantly.
- They are recognised by building assessors which helps accelerate building approvals
- They are proven to reduce damage in cases of a disaster, which leads to faster recovery
- They require less safety facilities, which reduces overall building cost and construction time
FM approval protects the current & future value of your building by insuring it against significant losses, it also protects your monetary investment. To discuss the requirements of your facility please contact us at KB Building Group for advice. Ph. 1300 52 5665.
Ten Farms- 3 additional ripening rooms
Ten Farms operate an advanced ripening, packing and distribution centre at the Melbourne Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable markets in Epping, Victoria.
With growing needs, Ten Farms wanted to expand their Epping facility with the addition of three new ripening rooms to compliment their existing ripening rooms, built previously.
With additional rooms Ten Farms can achieve greater production in the ripening of their bananas.
KB building group was able to work with other contractors to complete the facility with minimal disruptions to the existing business, within the agreed time frames and to the specifications of the customer. From the building permits to the final certificate of occupancy, KB building group worked to make the process as easy as possible for all involved.
Working with refrigeration company Oomiak who designed, installed and commissioned the refrigeration systems that served the new rooms.
Feedback from the client David Holman of Ten Farms is shown below-
“Having recently completed a new fitout to complement our existing ripening facilities, we are very pleased to endorse Kieran and KB Building services at completion of the works.
Our brief for the new fitout, was to replicate the existing ripening infra-structure adjacent to current ripening rooms, and Kieran delivered an excellent result in providing a seamless extension to our rooms.
Our history has spanned 3 business in Victoria and NSW as Banana ripeners for over 30 years, we have also used substantial general cold storage facilities. This was our first engagement with Kieran and he was able to meet our expectations as well as manage -:
- Proper room sealing
- Provision for unique large internal doors because we are in an insulated facility
- Facilitate the sprinkler system internally within the rooms in accordance with regulations
- Apply for, and complete the building permit through to provision of the certificate of occupancy Kieran managed to deliver the job within our agreed timeframe which was very important to us, and he provided weekly reports as to progress so that we were aware of any factors that may have impacted final delivery.
We would certainly engage KB Building group again, and extend our thanks to Kieran for a job well done. Yours Truly, David Holman, Director – Tenfarms Pty Ltd
Doing the job right from the start….
A number of KB building group customers call us in to fix problems associated with previous contractors poor workmanship or inexperience, the high importance of doing the job properly is not completely understood within the industry.
When constructing Controlled Environment facilities such as cool rooms or freezers, it is essential that you know what you are doing, because if it is done incorrectly many costly and dangerous problems can occur.There are techniques associated with constructing cool rooms and freezers that come with the experience of being in the industry for a long time.
Recently, KB building group was called in to repair a large freezer door threshold in which frost heave had occurred. Frost heave caused the freezer concrete slab to lift and fall apart. The freezer sliding door was frozen solid which created a dangerous situation with a potential risk of workers at the facility being trapped inside the freezer itself.
Cutting out a large section of concrete, installing new concrete, a new heat trace freezer frame, with a heated stainless steel threshold along with replacing new rubber gaskets was what KB building group had to do in order to fix the frost heave problem. The problem itself would not have occurred if the facility was built correctly from the start.
As a registered commercial builder and qualified carpenter by trade Kieran Brady, director at KB building group, leads a team of contractors through the process of building your controlled environment correctly, from design through to construction and for ongoing maintenance and repairs into the future.
Call us at ph. 1300 52 5665 for your cool room or freezer repairs in Melbourne.
Building (travel) Dreams, the story of KB
Our family businesses have changed recently, you may have noticed we have a new & a revamped old location. Kieran & Kylie Brady (KB)’s businesses have combined into the one premises,building cool rooms and turning your travel dreams into reality. Our KB building group and KB 4 Travel & Cruise, factory office location is in Chelsea Heights, Melbourne, Victoria.
Our family business journey began over 15 years ago when Kieran started building cool rooms, he quickly became noticed in the industry as someone who does a quality job, on time and on budget. He stood out as a qualified carpenter and registered commercial builder who was onsite daily working with the boys to build cool rooms, freezers, food production facilities, ripening rooms and more, known as Brady IPS (insulated panel systems).
I had taken time off from working in mental health as a registered nurse and pharmaceutical representative to look after our 4 kids. As they all grew old enough and forged their own dreams at kinder and school,it was time to lend my hand to something I was passionate about.
Kieran and I had met when we both lived overseas and have always travelled, each year we would take one holiday to somewhere new and exciting, and this holiday was always heavily researched and methodically planned. At this point in time I have travelled to 56 countries and I am keen to grow this further into the future, so the travel industry seemed like an interesting adventure.
To become a travel agent, you obviously need a knowledge of travel, but you also have to study to gain a qualification. I studied with Travel Training Australia who provide a great course that is 100% online. Still wanting to support my family, I only wanted to work part time and the easiest way to do this was to start up my own business working from home, as KB 4 Travel. Soon after we discovered how good Cruising is for families, and I added Cruise into my name, now known as KB 4 Travel & Cruise.
At this time, Kieran also decided to rebrand himself, being the sole builder at Brady IPS, a business partnership, it was time to pave his own way and KB building group was born. We gained full ownership of his original business premises, and have been working hard on renovating it for it’s duel purpose as a travel agency office and commercial cool room builders factory warehouse.
The new signs are up and two small businesses have been combined into one premises. We both care about a quality product and quality service and both work hard to achieve this. As small business owners the care we take in performing our work is second to none, and this is something you won’t find using a big corporation of employees, we are individuals who run and work in and on our businesses. We are not paid staff, or board run, we don’t work for stock holders or algorithms we work for our family and to support our local community. We work to support our kids, to buy groceries and sports uniforms, to pay school fees and afford household bills and we work to keep our own travel dreams alive.
By supporting us in our small businesses we would like to extend our thanks to you. Come and visit us at Chelsea Heights, where building (travel) dreams is our specialty.
Both businesses can be found on Facebook and on Instagram or we can be contacted through our websites https://www.kbbuildinggroup.com.au/or www.kb4travel.com.au
or by email, kb@kbbuildinggroup.com.au or kylie@kb4travel.com.au