Winter is Coming, New Warehouse has no Heating/Insulation, Need Advice...

blobert

Hello,

We've moved into a new warehouse (it's about a 15 year old building) with 2 floors and a metal roof that has no insulation. See pics to get an idea of the layout (all the boxes in there belong to previous tenant and are gone). We have people working on the first floor picking orders from shelves and packing them, the main packing area is basically at the top of the conveyor belt and that top half of the floor (see diagram) is where most of the packing occurs.

We're getting work done to expand the mezzanine 1st floor over to the conveyor so the mezzanine floor will be more or less the full footprint of the building. This other half of the upstairs will be in use but less frequently, ie people might go there to pick some order but they wont be standing/sitting working in it.

At the same time we're getting the floor extended we need to do some work on adding heating to at least some of the first floor if not all and potentially increasing the insulation on the roof (which seems to just be sheet metal. As per the diagram our initial plan is to build a partition (in blue) around the stairs and at the front around the roller door (with a door built for forklift access). With some expanding foam around and gaps at the edge of the mezzanine this would give us a reasonably draft free area across the whole first floor. We'd then look to get in 1/2 heaters a bit like this (no gas available so have to go electric): http://www.heatersuk.com/broughton-blue-giant-ff29-29kw-400v-3-phase-portable-fan-heater.html and hope this would be sufficient to get this upper floor up to a reasonable temperature (does not have to be roasting) so the people working there are comfortable.

My concern with this is that the volume to be heated is still very big, it's 200m2+ of floor space and with ceiling height of 3-4m it's 1000+m3. One of those 29Kw heaters is only meant to do 700m3 of volume so I'm thinking it could be really expensive if not impossible to heat the whole area.

Other options include partitioning off the half of the room that is more in use (see dotted blue line) which would give a more manageable area to heat. The only issue is going from warm to very cold repeatedly could be quite unpleasant. Potentially you could use a PVC strip curtain accross the same area also, this would probably mean the warmer part would still be warmer but some heat would leak into colder part making it less than freezing.

Finally I'm not sure if it might not be worth covering the inside of the roof with some basic this foil board insulation like here: http://www.planetinsulation.co.uk/ZKSTB20.php

That said I'm not sure if the payback for adding this would be quick enough. We are going to be here for a minimum of 2-3 winters but beyond that we may well outgrow the unit so I'm not 100% sure it would be worth spending a fortune on insulation.

What we need for the immediate future is to get some sort of heating solution in place over the next few weeks before it starts to get colder.

Anyway, if any of you have suggestions, they would be much appreciated!

Here is pics of warehouse/planned layout:

The_Bullman

Hard to be sure from the pictures but it looks to me that the roof is insulated panel. Probably just 40mm panel if it was done 15 years ago. Better than no insulation I suppose

Did you get a ber cert yet?

Metric Tensor

I agree with Bullman - that looks like an insulated panel in the roof. It would tie with the age of the building too.

There probably isn't much insulation in it but it's still a million (give or take) times better than a single skin roof with no insulation.

I'm afraid I can't give you much advice re heating except that the openness of the place will require a lot of heat and despite all your best efforts if you are in a warehouse it will leak air like a sieve and add to that forklifts coming in and out!

Ventilation and fire escape requirements will dictate how much you can sub divide the place - probably not much. Maybe look into some form of false, insulated ceiling if you're not using the height above the mezzanine - but don't forget ventilation and fire!

Fair play on having an expanding business btw. It's admirable.

Check out infra-ray lamps they make the staff feel warm without heating the whole building fabric.
They may provide a partial solution.

blobert

Thanks very much for the replies guys. You may well be right with the roof being partially insulated, if so perhaps putting in the roof insulation would be unnecessary. BER is D1 I believe.

I'd looked at the option on infrared heaters, they'd certainly do a job around the packing area but that might everywhere else would be very cold/too cold most likely. I guess we could look to try and heat the building a bit with blow heater/s and then have the IR ones also to make the work area warmer still but that might not work so well/just wind up being more costly?

Somthing like this would work well above the packing area: https://www.herschel-infrared.com/product/advantage-ir-360/

But it would not be feasible to have them all over the first floor as the rows of shelves are high so heat would be blocked out. They're also a very expensive upfront cost

Any further advice would be much appreciated.

If you think heating the whole upstairs is likely to be hugely difficult/expensive let me know and we might look at the partition route

Calahonda52

I would try and compartmentalise, even with the PVC doors: if you can have the space between the roller shutter and th PVC flaps big enough to have the forklift in that space before door opens so as to minimise heat loss via air movement.
Also, maybe look at a higher speed roller shutter.

As hot air rises, I would get less heating kit up there, and maybe more below.

The IR stuff works well and you should design it so that you can take it with you....

Forget about that foil insulation. as it would have to be covered due to fire regs and it would cause condensation on the inside face of the roof cladding.

Good luck with project, just think air movement is = to heat lost so compartmentalise just like a porch on a house.

Dudda

If you're removing the double height space you're creating two separate floors instead of a mezzanine. Putting aside heating for the moment have you considered fire regulations or are you getting a fire certificate? Is the stairs going to be enclosed by a fire rated partition and fire door? Is the stairs enclosed at ground floor so if a fire is downstairs the people upstairs can escape and get out? Also I just did a very quick drawing of a 10 meter by 20 meter block, 200 sqm, with shelves and the travel distance is just over 17 meters shown in red in the image below. The max travel distance for regular buildings is 18 meters (not sure if warehouse is different) so it's very close and my drawing isn't obviously to scale to match yours.




If you build the dashed blue line on your drawing you're potentially creating what's known as a room within a room depending on where the door to the stairs is which can bring even more complication to fire regulation compliance.

You might need to seek some professional advice to ensure you don't go creating a dangerous working environment by trying to make it comfortable.

blobert

Thanks for the suggestions guys. You're right, we're essentially looking to create 2 separate floors. At the moment the plan would be that the downstairs is not going to be heated/just used for storage. So it's the upstairs area that we're looking to heat.

At the moment I'm leaning towards the original plan of partitioning around the stairs and at the front around the roller door. But I think it may be too difficult to try and heat this whole floor and at least 50% of it will not be in use that much.

Will a PVC curtain make much of a difference do you think, ie if we had a curtain running across where the dotted blue line is and then tried to heat the area that most of the work is going to be happening in would this be easier than trying to heat the whole floor? If the PVC curtain is not likely to be of use we could always try and heat the whole floor (a bit) and supplement with Infrared Heater above the work area.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!