Tips To Keep Your Warehouse Warm In Winter

You may think the ongoing challenge of keeping your warehouse comfortable for employees is finally over, but winter is coming! The fact is that cold temperatures can create all kinds of obstacles to warehouse climate control. Here are 4 ways to help you keep your warehouse warm during the winter.

1. Keep it Sealed: Prevent Heat Loss
Problem: Warehouse doors and windows are a major source of heat loss, and in some warehouses, it’s impossible to keep those doors closed, especially as shipments move in and out. Heat loss and poor insulation can create:

Damaged inventory from extreme cold
Inability to retain employees because of cold stress and an uncomfortable environment
Higher energy consumption, which means higher energy bills
Solution: Investments in how your doors retain heat are possible and cost-effective. The following are some solutions that can prevent heat loss when cold weather affects your warehouse:

Install insulated dock panel doors
Insulation kits provide great value and are easy to install
Add weather strips or seals to the gaps at the tops, bottoms, and sides of all doors
Using high-speed doors
2. Keep Inventory in Order
Problem: Having warehouse workers searching through unorganized inventory or sending them around the warehouse floor aimlessly is not a quality method of keeping them happy or warm. Helping them feel that each step they take is important and necessary is the best way to run warehouse operations during the winter.

Solution: Warehouse managers that implement barcode-based inventory management systems have identified how to get employees through the warehouse efficiently, and back into comfortable spaces quicker.

3. Get the Latest in Heat Generation
Problem: Poorly maintained heaters are not only a health risk, but they also don’t heat the warehouse as efficiently as possible, leading to unnecessarily high energy costs as well as an overall poorly heated space.

Solution: Commit to regular maintenance of heat systems in the months leading up to and during winter to ensure optimal use and longer life. This will keep heaters in good working order.

4. Warm Up with Industrial Ceiling Fans
Problem: Even with a heating system in place, HVAC systems do not effectively distribute warm air throughout an entire warehouse. This leaves large areas too cold for inventory and uncomfortable for employees.

Solution: High volume, low speed (HVLS) fans can sometimes run in reverse, This function of HVLS fans helps distribute heat throughout a warehouse during cold winters. Yes, you read that correctly, large ceiling fans can heat up a warehouse just as well as they cool it off.

The fans’ reverse function heats up a large warehouse by pushing warm air provided by the building’s heating system upward and outward, forcing the layer of hot air to distribute down the warehouse walls and evenly across the floor. The fans move the collected warm air, which provides a comfortable climate for any warehouse space.
Utilizing resources like the reverse function of large industrial fans along with the practices found in this blog will help you with warehouse temperature control during the winter months.