What is a cold room?

Cold rooms play an important role in contemporary living yet the work they do mostly goes unnoticed. Take a laboratory for example. Within a laboratory environment there are lots of temperature sensitive equipment and products. Each item must be stored in the correct climate. When required temperatures fall below room temperature, a cold room ensures items are housed effectively so they remain safe to use and in the best condition.

And that’s not all they do.



Here’s all you need to know about what a cold room is and why your lab needs one.

What is a cold room?

A cold room is a temperature-controlled space which sustains a climate below room temperature to keep specialist items preserved for a certain duration. Designed for commercial use, these large refrigeration chambers permanently remain at a pre-determined

low temperature accompanied by humidity control.

Types

Cold rooms can be made in many different styles and sizes including: laboratory cold rooms, modular laboratory cold rooms, walk-in cold rooms, modular freezers, walk-in freezers, cold rooms for vehicles to enable transportation of goods and more.

Design

Temperatures and scale vary widely from sector to sector. What must always be the sam for a cold room to be effective is superb insulation. Good insulation is key. Any cold room’s insulating materials must be poor conductors of heat and suitable for the range of

temperatures you need your cold room to sustain. The room’s robust insulation has to provide an impenetrable barrier to external heat in any weather. Choice of insulating material plus the array of external temperatures the insulating material must withstand are important factors to consider for any cold room design.

Insulating materials must be able to guarantee the temperature inside the cold room will remain stable, regardless of what’s happening outside. Even the slightest slip in insulation quality could cause damage to stored items due to condensation, freezing, quickened

deterioration and more.

Regulations

Compliance is another major factor for any cold room design. From the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) in America to the UK’s MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency) there are lots of industry regulations and guidelines for safe preservation of goods

which must be followed.

For the healthcare industry, strict conditions exist for safe storage of resources which must be maintained to ensure everything from levels of light to humidity adhere to required limits.