Cool rooms and clean rooms for Melbourne projects

Cool Rooms vs Clean Rooms: Which Does Your Melbourne Project Need?

The cool room vs clean room question comes down to what the room has to control. A cool room holds a set temperature. A clean room limits airborne contamination. They are built differently and briefed differently. Some sites need one of each.

What each room controls

	Cool room	Clean room
Controls	Temperature	Airborne particles and contamination
Built from	Insulated panels, doors, refrigeration plant	Non-shedding panels and surfaces, filtered air supply, airlocks
Driven by	What is stored, the target temperature, how often doors open	What the process must be protected from, and how people and materials move in
Read next	The cool room construction process	Site considerations for clean room construction

Both rooms rely on insulated panels, but for different reasons. In a cool room the panels hold temperature. In a clean room they also need smooth, non-shedding surfaces. See how insulated sandwich panels work.

Which one does your project need?

• You need goods held at a set temperature. That’s a cool room. For food storage, see our food-grade cool room guide.
• Dust, particles or airborne contaminants would affect your process. That’s a clean room. Classification depends on how many airborne particles the process can tolerate, and ISO 14644-1 sets the classes. Our pharmaceutical clean room standards and modular clean room guide go further.
• You need both. Treat them as two separate requirements, even if they end up in the same building. Each has its own design drivers.
• Your industry doesn’t decide it. A food or pharmaceutical business doesn’t automatically need a clean room. The process does.

Questions to answer before you brief a builder

1. What must the room protect: product temperature, product purity, or both?
2. If it’s temperature, what range, and how often will doors open?
3. If it’s contamination, what is the process sensitive to, and who and what enters the room?
4. Where does the room sit relative to receiving, dispatch and the rest of the site?

If the answer involves CO₂ refrigeration, read planning a cool room for CO₂ refrigeration first.

Planning a cool room or clean room in Melbourne

A1 Precision Solutions designs, builds and maintains both cool rooms and clean rooms. See our insulated panels and cool room services, or contact us with your answers to the questions above.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do all clean rooms need refrigeration?

No. Cleanliness and temperature are separate requirements. A clean room only needs refrigeration if the process also needs temperature control.

Can a clean room also be temperature controlled?

Yes, but each is a distinct design requirement. List both in the brief and say where each applies.

Can one commercial facility include both a cool room and a clean room?

Yes. A site can have temperature-controlled storage in one room and a clean work area in another. Define each room’s function and how people and product move between them.

Is a clean room always required for food or pharmaceutical work?

No. It depends on the process and product, not the sector. Describe the work first, then confirm which requirements apply.