Heat load, not volume, sets the price of a cold-room quote. ASHRAE adds total load from five items: heat through walls, ceiling and floor, cooling the product, internal sources (lighting, motors, people working), air entering through doors, and the heat of the refrigeration equipment itself. If the specification does not give the inputs for these, the project team assumes them; two rooms of the same volume are different plants if one takes two pallets a day and the other twenty.
| Line | How to write it |
|---|---|
| Product and packaging | Which product, in which container |
| Arrival temperature | The warmest temperature at which product arrives, and the time allowed to reach target |
| Daily intake | Pallets or kilograms; the busiest day |
| Target temperature and humidity | As a range; at which point it is measured |
| Doors | Number, openings per day and duration |
| Operating pattern | Hours per day, days per week, summer outside temperature |
In the quote, ask for the design assumptions, the indoor and outdoor temperatures the capacity is stated for, the defrost arrangement, the scope of panels, doors and floor, the scenario behind the energy estimate and the service scope. Bringing warm product down to target is a separate load; if arrival temperature is not written, the calculation leaves it out and the room cannot reach target in the first busy season.
The acceptance test runs on a loaded room, because bringing an empty room to target and pulling product down are different tests. The clause states starting load, product arrival temperature, door pattern, outside conditions, sensor positions, logging interval and the time allowed to reach target. A room measured at one point never shows its warmest corner, so ask for several sensors and a temperature map at commissioning. If the test fails, readjustment, retest and responsibility steps sit in the contract.