Are Your Warehouse Doors Saving You Money?

Exterior and interior warehouse doors have the potential to reduce costs, improve energy efficiency, and boost productivity for warehouses, distribution centers, and manufacturing facilities.

Industry leaders report temperature drops by as much as 4°C to 10°C each time a door is opened while the heat is on, which spells out significant energy losses for operations teams looking for cost savings everywhere they can.

Electricity Bills are an Issue for Most Warehouses

It’s a costly issue that goes well beyond food and beverage, or other refrigerated goods such as pharmaceuticals. Food Logistics reported that while refrigeration accounts for 60 percent of the electricity used for refrigerated warehouses, energy still accounts for 15 percent of a non-refrigerated warehouse’s operating budget.

Money lost to energy bills – especially when it isn’t necessary – is an issue any midsize to large facility can appreciate, regardless of the goods you move.

Energy Assessments with Loading Dock and Warehouse Experts

When warehouses look at reducing their electrical consumption or roll out greener initiatives, they often target cooling, heating, and lighting systems. However, the building’s layout and door openings are often overlooked. If energy amounts to about 15% of a non-refrigerated facility’s operating costs, is it possible better doors lower this number by two or three percentage points?

A Loc8 energy assessment will:

• Measure and assess air filtration systems
• Measure and assess refrigeration systems (if applicable)
• Account for wind speed and geographic information (like weather and seasonal changes)
• Consider your operational needs and asset maintenance/replacement schedules
• Demonstrate how much energy is lost at dock openings and doorways
• Calculate the return on investment with real-life budgets
• Recommend energy credits, where applicable

Capture Greater ROI for Heating and Cooling with Better Warehouse Doors

Better R-Values for Insulated and Refrigerated Doors

R-value is an industry standard that measures the energy efficiency of building materials, especially the thermal performance of its insulation. It is definitely worth noting if you manage cold-storage warehouses, walk-in coolers and blast freezers.

A higher R-value means better insulation and the ability to resist more heat fluctuations. For example, inefficient materials with a lower value may score an R-value like R-1 while a more energy efficient material will rate an R-5.

Your industrial door provider will be able to provide you with the R-values on your spec sheets and, naturally, you’ll want a higher R-value for better insulation and temperature control.

Save Money with Better Exterior Doors and Seals for Loading Docks

The most energy efficient solutions are built to keep the outdoors outside and the indoors inside. This means heating/cooling isn’t escaping and outside environmental factors are not impacting the indoor temperature or comfort zone.

Start with a reliable dock door like the Insul Rite 5255 Sectional or Steel Rite Sectional for high performing insulation. The Impactable Rite-Flex Door is also a good choice when better ventilation is needed.

Next, inspect the loading dock doors to find small gaps – and don’t forget the “fourth side” or the open pits beneath the dock leveler. There are many solutions to gaps at your loading dock:

• leveler lip corner seals
• bumper seals
• filler pads
• weather seals
• under-leveler seals
• trailer top seal

Door Open-and-Close Times Are Bigger Factors on Your Energy Bill Than You May Think They Are

Cold storage facilities can especially benefit from high-speed doors because they are a quick upgrade that presents immediate and long term savings. That’s because open-and-close time (or cycle time) is an important factor in energy loss.

In refrigerated warehouses, high volumes of product constantly exchange hands and travel throughout the facility. Whenever a door opens, two air streams are set in motion:

• Cold air escapes the cold storage area
• Warm, humid air enters the cold storage area

These air streams, called mass air flooding, represent up to 85% of energy loss at door openings. Doors with low cycle times have higher mass air flooding and greater energy loss.

Rite-Hite has a large collection of high performance, high speed door solutions in roll-up and bi-parting designs, available in versatile track configurations:

• FasTrax
• FasTrax XL
• SplitSecond
• LiteSpeed
• TrakLine Series

Are you wasting money whenever your warehouse doors get damaged?

From heavy traffic and extreme weather conditions to large pallets and powerful equipment, such as forklifts and trailers – expect your warehouse doors to take a beating.

For rugged durability and simplicity, a reliable steel sectional door (like the Steel-Rite Sectional Door) is well suited for your environment. Made from true 24-gauge roll formed steel doors, these roll up doors meet or exceed 15.2 psf windload.

For strength and flexibility, impactable roll up panel doors can shrug off most inadvertent fork truck impacts. The Rite-Flex Door can flex up to 12” without damage. The new Raptor Rubber Doors also feature industry-grade flexibility and durability, but with the added benefits of auto-refeeding when the door is knocked off its track.

What’s the ROI for Your New Warehouse Doors?

If your current doors eat up energy, frequently require maintenance or you’re experiencing any avoidable downtime then maybe you should question if these doors are that type of door is best suited for your application and needs. The return on new warehouse doors and loading dock doors pay back very quickly. Contact a LOC8 representative to help you review your current environment and calculate your exact ROI.

We have experts ready to help! Contact us today.

If you’d like to receive your personalized energy and cost savings assessment, please contact the experts at Loc8 (Loc8- 800 Loc8 5628).