Paul Jacklin has been donning his thermals this year despite one of the hottest summers on record, as he carries out a raft of inspections at some of the country’s leading cold stores.
Business logistics company GIST, which designs, manages and operates complex supply chain solutions for customers world-wide, represents some of the country’s leading high street brands.
It also has a number of cold stores within its property portfolio and, as Engineer Paul, explains, HBPW was asked to begin its own special UK road trip – which took in Scotland, Eire and as far south as Kent in England – to ensure that 12 of them were all still meeting health and safety guidelines.
Engineer Paul, said: “Within each external cold store building there is an internally insulated envelope which is designed to keep the environment cool.
“Each chill store has insulated walls and ceilings which are very heavy. Obviously the walls are supported off the ground, however each ceiling has to be supported off the existing building frame, hence the need to make roofs more robust.
“Add to that roof suspended chillers, some weighing in at four or five tonnes, and you can have some considerable weight.”
Paul said sub-contractors or in-house maintenance teams, occasionally had to walk on insulated panels – initially designed with person access in mind – however, they still needed checking periodically to ensure that they had not deteriorated and were still in line with health and safety guidelines.
HBPW has not only had a professional relationship with GIST and its predecessor, BOC Transhield, for more than 40 years, but Managing Partner, Paul Withers, was technical editor of the International Association of Cold Store Construction’s authoritative document “The Design Specification and Construction of Cold Store Floors.”
GIST’s temperature controlled network specialises in the end-to-end movement of chilled food, fresh produce and horticulture for both retailers and manufacturers, facilitating the movement of more than 100,000 pallets of temperature controlled product every week.