INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
FEATURE waste , but also about the waste in time , energy , and putting the wrong number of vehicles on the road . There are many more things to consider than just the construction site ,” adds Schoeman .
Security of supply is another major factor . Putting your building up in a place where there is a good infrastructure in terms of utilities and energy is vitally important , but you also need things like good drainage because you don ’ t want a flooded facility every time there is heavy rain , so you have to consider not only the site itself but the support around the site .
“ What type of roads you have access to , how long it take a truck to get off the highway into your facility . If there are regular electricity outages or failures , your trucks might take double the amount of time to get to you due to poor traffic flow . These are other things to things that are only realised afterwards when the facility is complete and proper analysis was not done first ,” adds Kriel .
“ It is also often disheartening to see when someone had a piece of land and they just dived in and developed it but because they never had the necessary advice to consider everything that has been noted here , they land up in a very real scenario of whether the business will survive or not ,” says Schoeman .
RECONSIDERING THE MEANING OF COST
It is unfortunate that the continued general mindset in South Africa is to push and demand cheaper and cheaper solutions . We hear about this all the time and no doubt this could have been an experience you have worked through yourself , but in fact , the only progression here is a race to the bottom . It ’ s a case of all logic has ’ gone out the window ’ because evidence proves again and again that you have to choose between quality and cost .
“ The quality element in South Africa essentially has and continues to create a very difficult environment for ‘ honest competition ’ and is always a topic of conversation . There is also reportedly not a drive in South Africa to check up on quality because there is no recourse for companies who take a short cut , and this is a major challenge across the industry ,” says Ari Zwick , CEO of Precool Insulated Panels .
Cutting costs to secure a job widens an already open door to suspect quality being applied . It is increasingly common to hear comments where some companies have secured a contract at a rate that is far lower than the market rate , and in extreme cases lower than most suppliers ’ costs – it is only logical that quality will be under question . In today ’ s economic environment it is more important than ever to be cognisant of this and the long-term effects .
“ Costs in cold store construction can be divided into several parts and by far the biggest cost in the process , as I would explain to a client investing into this
sector , is the cost of the actual product that will be stored or handled at the right
Preparations underway for an underfloor heating system .
temperature , at the right time , at the right place . If these key elements are not correct , you will face problems . The fact of the matter , and the reason this is important is because in many cases we have built facilities valued in the hundreds of millions of rands , but the value of the product inside the facility could be worth as much as 10 times that at any point in time . There are many such cases and some industries naturally have a higher value than others , but the main point here is that the value of the ‘ kept product ’ far exceeds the cost of the facility , even more so when considering a 20 years plus lifespan ,” says Kriel .
Someone packing fruit knows all about nectarines or peaches and plums , but a cold room is just a cold room to them .
Second to product are energy costs . Up to 70 % of the cost in running a cold store is going to be the energy consumed over the facility lifespan , and if you don ’ t take this into account from the beginning , this too can be such a big number compared to the capital expenditure , it may even prove an unviable venture .
Energy costs and their parameters should also form part of your up-front analysis because the dynamics of this may differ vastly between geographical locations . For example , if you want to build a cold store in the middle of Johannesburg , this might be exceptional in terms of location purposes , but then having to pay a tariff that is twice what you would pay by establishing a cold store in another area would result in you being uncompetitive and automatically out of the market before you even open your doors .
With all refrigeration system maintenance , and the most important in terms of energy consumption is that the day the system is commissioned , it ’ s working perfectly efficiently . A year later when not maintained correctly you will see that plant is operating in a sub-optimal state . Another year its further away from optimal efficiency . Over a five year period you may sit at 20 % less efficient and this means
opex costs are out of budget .
A CLOSER LOOK AT MAJOR COMPONENTS
Fire suppression systems are a nonnegotiable for the industry and must form part of any facility . In the past , people could get away with interpreting the regulations in a way to cut out certain elements , but today one has to be innovative around fire systems and there is a lot of research being done in different technologies to offer different solutions to the common sprinkler type systems that are not actually a good fit for this application because the consequences of accidents result in very bad outcomes .
“ What we have found from our perspective , is that we have seen a significant impact from insurance companies in regard to component requirements . As alluded to , a lot of systems that take the water factor out of a cold store environment are in continual development , but fire safety is one of the key elements required to be included in design . The insurance landscape requirements are much more stringent than what we saw 5 years ago ,” notes Schoeman .
There is also a perceived specification for insulated panels which is another major component in any cold store or cold room construction . The engineer will specify X , and he will expect and assume the contractor will provide X . Projects go out to tender and companies submit their pricing . As an example , a 0.5mm frost white chromadek cladding and a 100mm insulation would be requested .
“ There is then no specification on quality of steel , zinc content or corrosion resistance , nor is there specification on insulation density . Both of these items have a huge range and a supply into South Africa that often comes from China , Taiwan , and India to name a few . I like to explain things in analogy , so specifying something without specifics is like asking for a car with four wheels and body . Four wheels and a body could be a salvaged bakkie that fell off a container into the sea , was claimed and is barely running , or it could be the latest luxury SUV off the showroom floor . The range in between the two is almost infinite and so the quality will obviously be different ,” expresses Zwick .
Insulated panelling is an easy place to ‘ cheat ’. The steel can be microns thinner and the insulation density can be greatly reduced , for example by 30 %. Now , when you are building a cold store that is 100m long and 60m wide and 15m high , there is a couple of thousand cubic metres of refrigerated space to contend with .
When you take a 30 % lower insulation density in the envelope into consideration , this has a significant impact on many levels . When you look at the panels you won ’ t see the difference , when you look at the cladding you won ’ t notice the difference , but there is in fact a huge difference , and this directly translates to your energy costs over time , and the stress you will put onto your refrigeration system .
The thermal efficiency of the building or store will be greatly reduced . As an example , you have 30 degree weather or
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