Let’s take a Look at Insulated Panel Doors | Thermal Installations

June 12, 2018

Insulated panel doors are everywhere. They’re so common that you may not even notice them. They’re in supermarkets, warehouses, office buildings, factories, on farms and in all types of distribution centres. They look like simple doors but they’re not. They’re quite complex, and the new generation of insulated panel doors is a big step up from the doors of the past.

In the early days of refrigeration, the theory was simply to maintain a cool space. That turned out to be a lot harder to do than anyone thought. Old style refrigeration was energy-intensive, expensive and not very efficient.

It was thermodynamics that provided the solution, not just refrigeration technology. Heat transfer for large spaces is complicated, with a lot of different factors involved.

A bit of research found many problems:

• The cool spaces weren’t properly sealed to start with. Heat could enter, making the storage inefficient.
  
• Even if sealed, inadequately insulated cool rooms created water condensation, risking food spoiling.
  
• Under-insulated areas simply got warmer, adding demand for additional refrigeration, meaning more strain on the refrigerators and added costs, particularly for freezers.

The obvious need was for well-integrated, all-round insulation. The result was about 70 years of research and development, resulting in the creation of a whole new form of insulation.

Insulated panel doors were critical to this development. Doors are the natural access points to cold storage. Hot air enters and cold air is lost through storage doors unless they’re properly sealed. Uninsulated doors were obviously a major problem. They were replaced by insulated panel doors with reliable seals to integrate the important door spaces into the cold storage insulation.

The new insulated panel doors are fully integrated into their cold storage environments. That’s a major problem solver for all types of cold storage. 

The science of modern cold storage insulation involves creating a whole environment which is consistently insulated and delivers minimal heat transfer. The entire cold storage space is insulated on the basis of precisely calculated insulation properties. It’s now possible to custom build insulated spaces where temperature controls can be accurate to a fraction of a degree.

Modern insulated panel doors EPS FR fire-resistant doors, typically used in conjunction with basic PIR Fire Resistant panels. These fire-resistant doors and panels add an extra level of resistance to fire and are excellent at resisting external heat. This “cover all bases” approach to insulation is one of the reasons modern insulation is so efficient. Fire resistance is also good risk management, ensuring the best possible protection for goods in storage.

Thermal Panel Solutions offers a complete range of products and solutions for commercial insulation in Sydney. We manufacture, design and install modern insulation for all types of businesses, from major retailers to agriculture, industry, and more. Call us on (02) 9132 4211 or contact us online to speak to our team about your needs.