Innovative Refrigeration Systems announces Bill Hefner will head up our new air door division to market and sell our state of the art air door for cooler and freezer applications in the grocery & food distribution, food processing and refrigerated warehouse industries.

These revolutionary air doors use a patent-pending “impingement seal” technology that has only been available to North America’s largest food distribution company. Innovative has been selling these doors exclusively to its refrigeration customers for the past 8 years and has over 200 doors in service. These doors are now available to the rest of refrigerated market.

This “impingement seal” technology was developed by Innovative Refrigeration while designing blast freezers for customers. It utilizes a dual air stream that is discharged across the width of the doorway from top to bottom and is re-circulated. Calculations show these single air doors for cooler applications are approximately 80% -95% depending on temperature difference or more effective in blocking infiltration air from entering the cold room at the doorway when a physical door is open. On freezer applications the effectiveness is approximately 80-93% depending on temperature difference and door model number.

When compared to a leading competitor’s air curtain that utilizes “free waste heat” from the refrigeration system as the heat source, the Innovative air door (with properly regulated electric heat) was deemed more energy efficient by a leading energy engineering consulting firm. This was because the Innovative air door introduces much less heat load into the freezer than the competitor’s ‘free waste heat’. In order to use free waste heat, expensive hot-gas refrigerant piping and insulated pipes must be installed and connected to a reclaim coil. This additional expense typically adds thousands of dollars to the cost of the equipment. By not requiring this additional expense, Innovative air doors are more competitive, more efficient, and safer. They will also result in a quicker ROI for end users.

According to ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers), at least half of a freezer’s load is due to infiltration air at the doorway in refrigerated warehouses. Once the heat load is introduced into the cold room it takes a substantial amount more compressor energy to maintain temperature.

Innovative air doors dramatically reduce infiltration air and allow the compressors to run at a normal capacity to maintain the design temperature. In older facilities the reduction of large amounts of infiltration air could actually result in “surplus capacity” in the engine room, allowing the cold room to get colder. The reduction in infiltration air in today’s refrigerated facilities is significant, since refrigeration represents at least 50% of some company electric bills.

The economic impact of buying and installing Innovative air doors could also result in enough annual energy savings to pay for the equipment within 2-3 years. This represents a great investment opportunity for refrigerated companies.

Today these revolutionary air doors will be available to all companies in the U.S. and Canada with refrigerated facilities. Heading up this newly formed air door division is Bill Hefner, national sales manager. Bill spent almost 20 years with another air curtain manufacturer in Montana now owned by an insulated door company in Maryland. Operating from his Florida office, Mr. Hefner will call on his many contacts throughout the low temp industry, including end users, contractors, and select material handling dealers that are familiar with air curtain applications. Plans are underway to establish select companies and individuals across the U.S. and Canada to sell Innovative air doors.