If the phrase “warehouse in summer” causes your knees to buckle and your forehead to break out in a sweat, then you’re in the right place.
Some warehouse-type facilities have been known to reach triple digits in temperature, making conditions nearly impossible for hard-working employees. Even temps in the upper 70s can cause a measurable decrease in productivity. If your team uses words like “oven,” “furnace,” or “hell” to describe your warehouse, you’re overdue for a cooler solution.
That’s not just uncomfortable. It can be dangerous.
Yet large spaces like warehouses are notoriously expensive to cool down in the hot months of the year. In facilities running hot machinery, the temperature can rise even higher. Even a relatively small factory floor can get astronomical energy bills.
So how do you go about dropping the heat without breaking the bank? You have options, let’s take a look at a few potential solutions to discover which one might be worth considering.
Cooling a Warehouse in Summer with Air Conditioning
Everyone loves air conditioning. It’s easy to close your eyes and imagine that icy breeze blowing across your face on a hot and sweaty afternoon. It’s downright delightful.
But AC is pricey. Calculating the cost of air conditioning considers a variety of variables, including building size and layout, weather, windows and doors, the number of people inside, and the type of equipment being used, among other factors.
Since every building is different, the cost can vary significantly. But it’s almost always high. Very high. Many facilities pay upwards of six figures for their annual energy utilities.
HVAC systems have to replace hot air with cool air, they have to run nearly constantly, especially when conditions get toasty. And toasty equals costly.
Yet even if money were no object, air conditioning isn’t necessarily the most optimal solution. It’s limited in the way it can move air through a building, and it’s almost always a less-than-efficient use of energy.
Other Options for Cooling a Warehouse in Summer
What about other possibilities? You can find a variety of creative solutions for keeping your employees cool in a hot warehouse:
- Insulation (helpful but expensive, and not always possible)
- Portable AC units (useful but only cools a small area)
- Screens and shelters (can keep a little heat out of the building, but reduces security)
- Dehumidifiers (beneficial yet supplemental; not for use in dry climates)
- Portable evaporative coolers (can be worthwhile for smaller areas, especially if the entire building doesn’t need to be cooled, but require water and more energy)
- Heat safety training (always a good option, but doesn’t solve the problem)
- Water and popsicles (essential and tasty, but not an all-encompassing solution)
Each of these solutions for keeping cool in a warehouse during the summer can contribute toward keeping employees, customers, and equipment cooler. But none of them are as effective and efficient as the best option: big warehouse fans.
The Most Effective Way to Cool a Warehouse in Summer
The best method for conquering the heat in a warehouse efficiently is to use a high-volume, low-speed (HVLS) fan. Reducing the temperature in a warehouse requires increasing the airflow throughout the facility. People inside a hot warehouse will feel cooler when air flows over their skin.
Big warehouse fans can work independently or in conjunction with existing AC or supplemental options like evaporative coolers. The fans take the cool air created by air conditioning and spread it around the warehouse.
Warehouse ceiling fans get the job done and do it very efficiently, using a minimal amount of energy to do it. Big Ass Fans have installed fans in thousands of warehouse-sized facilities, including factories, distribution centers, gyms, and large event sites.
Big fans don’t actually create cooler air; they circulate it. They flow air through an area, displacing hot, stagnant air with a breeze that physically makes a body feel less hot.
Both in the short and long term, big warehouse fans are the best option for cooling a warehouse best in summer because they do it more effectively and for a much lower cost than any other option.
Curious to see how a Big Ass fan can cool down the people in your warehouse?
Contact us for a free high-tech analysis of your warehouse!
