Constructing a cool room can be a massive investment for a business. And, for a lot of businesses, a cool room is likely central to their operation. Restaurants need to keep food cold before it’s prepared, food stores may have large refrigeration and freezer sections both accessible to customers and for general storage, bottle shops like to offer pre-cooled beverages for their customers to take home. In all of these examples, and in most cool room uses, food is involved. Because of that, it’s important that a cool room is kept as clean as possible. This is both because of food safety requirements as well as general business operation requirements.

But how do you clean a cool room? Cool room sandwich panels are robust, but they can be damaged if not treated properly.

Fortunately, keeping a cool room clean isn’t terribly challenging. Cleaning just needs to be done properly. Here are our suggestions for cleaning a cool room.

Don’t Use Hard Chemicals Or Solvents

Harsh chemicals and solvents can damage the outside of sandwich panels and make your cool room less functional. Because of this, it’s best to avoid chemicals and solvents altogether. If you do need to use something other than water to remove build up or stains, ensure the pH of the product is between 5 and 9, this isn’t too acidic or too alkaline.

After you use any chemical though, no matter how mild, give the sandwich panels a thorough rinse with clean water to ensure no chemicals stay on the surface.

Rinse Cool Room Panels With Clean Water From Top To Bottom

As mentioned, thoroughly rinse cool room sandwich panels after using any kind of cleaning product on them. With that being said, often sandwich panels don’t even need anything other than water to rinse off dirty and dust.

When rinsing cool room sandwich panels, whether it’s to remove cleaning chemicals or for a light clean, make sure you rinse the panels from top to bottom. This will allow anything sitting on the panel walls to be rinsed onto the floor and be completely removed from the panel itself.

Avoid High Pressure Cleaning Of Sandwich Panels

Just like with harsh chemicals, high pressure cleaning, even with just water, can also damage the outside of sandwich panels. If pressure needs to be used to remove stubborn build up, ensure the nozzle is at least 30 cm away from the surface of the sandwich panel and keep the pressure to a minimum.

When spraying sandwich panels with any kind of pressure, even light pressure, don’t spray into the panel joints. Even the best sealed panel joints can’t withstand high pressures trying to work into them.

Don’t Use High Temperature Steam Cleaning

Like high pressure cleaning and chemicals, steam cleaning can also cause damage to cool room sandwich panels. However, lower temperature steam cleaning is usually fine for cleaning cool room sandwich panels. Generally if you keep it below 50 degrees Celsius for steam cleaning, your panels shouldn’t be damaged, but it may be best to check with your sandwich panel manufacturer on this.

Clean Cool Room Sandwich Panels Frequently

Heavy scrubbing can damage cool room panels, and because of this, frequent cleaning can ensure there’s not a large amount of build up that requires heavier scrubbing or products that may potentially damage expensive parts of your cool room’s insulation.

As with many things, prevention is better than the cure, so staying ahead of cleaning before if becomes a problem will ultimately make everything easier. And you’ll have a cleaner cool room because of it.

Get Maintenance Issues Sorted Quickly

While this is less an issue to do with cleaning cool rooms, keeping on top of sandwich panel maintenance is just as important as cleaning. If you’ve damaged a sandwich panel by mistake while cleaning it, get it repaired right away. Poorly maintained cool room sandwich panels can make your cool room inefficient or non-operational, which can cost more money long term.

Like any piece of equipment, cool rooms, freezers, and especially clean rooms require a level of professional maintenance from time to time, and it’s not just damage related. It’s recommended that these types of facilities receive an annual inspection and report. During these inspections everything will be assessed for material health, cleanliness, and any repairs that may be required.

If you have any questions about the cleaning of sandwich panels for your cool room, or any maintenance issues that may arise, feel free to get in touch. We’re happy to help.