Commercial Dehumidifiers for Warehouses and Cold Storage Facilities

January 29, 2025

There are a number of reasons why a business can benefit from humidity control. On a production line, industrial dehumidifiers help to maximise the quality of products and ensure compliancy during the packaging process.

However, before ingredients are used, and after the products are complete, you need an effective storage solution to keep them fresh and safe. Your warehouses and cold storage facilities need to have a low relative humidity (RH) for them to work well. And our commercial dehumidifiers are perfect for the job.

The Importance of Controlling Humidity in Warehouses

If you create any products on a large scale, you need at least one warehouse. This commercial building is used to store your products, the ingredients/materials used to create them, and any machinery or equipment you don’t use on a daily basis or want to keep secure overnight.

These large, open spaces are perfect for setting up shelves, cleanrooms, and freezers for your various storage needs. However, a large, open space can also cause its own humidity-related issues.

A draughty room’s temperature fluctuated throughout the day and night. When the warm air inside cools, and comes into contact with a cooler surface, droplets of moisture will form, known as the ‘dew point’. This can occur on shelves, machinery, and the containers you use.

If this is happening night after night, all throughout the year, this water can start to cause major problems. Damp wood and fabric create the ideal conditions for mould to grow, and if that’s anywhere near food products or perishable materials, entire batches could be ruined without your knowledge.

Machinery can also be affected. The excess moisture can make metal parts become rusty. With tens of thousands of pounds of equipment that you can’t operate without at risk, you need to control the humidity inside your warehouse(s).

How to Control Humidity in Warehouses

If you manage the relative humidity in your warehouse, you’ll be free from any mould and rust issues. A commercial dehumidifier will remove all excess moisture from the air as it enters the building, preventing any droplets from forming.

This can be done in two ways, as there are two types of commercial dehumidifier to choose from. A condensing dehumidifier (sometimes known as a refrigerant dehumidifier) cools a coil so that it collects all the moisture within the system. However, these systems aren’t always as effective as you want them to be, and don’t guarantee a reduction in RH during certain times of the year when humidity is at its highest.

A desiccant dehumidifier, on the other hand, uses a heated fan to dry the air as it passes through the system. This is effective year-round, and the excess heat and moisture is released outside, so that the temperature in your warehouse remains unchanged while the humidity is controlled.

The placement of your dehumidifier is just as important as the machines themselves. If you’re only removing humidity from certain parts of the building and neglecting others, your issues will be reduced but not stopped entirely. As part of our service we conduct a thorough assessment of your application, so we know exactly where is best to install your new dehumidification system. We work with you to maximise the effectiveness of our systems without restricting your storage space; and we never require any major rearrangements of your facility.

The Importance of Humidity Control in Cold Storage

For many businesses, cold storage is the only way to keep products and ingredients fresh. This is especially true for the food production industry, where maximising shelf life is key, but it’s relevant for a wide range of others, including:

• Technology
• Pharmaceuticals
• Scientific Research and Logistics
• Agriculture/Horticulture

All of these industries and more rely heavily on their cold storage. If they start to let you down, it can have a major impact on your output.

The biggest issues in your cold stores, other than a mechanical fault, are caused when ice builds up in your refrigeration system, walls, floors and ceilings. Just from an operational point this ice blocks coils and means the room won’t be kept at the temperature you need. Worst still though is that floors become slippery, large volumes of ice build on walls and ceilings and the area becomes hazardous to work in.

Ice builds up in cold storage when the air being cooled is too humid. As the moisture in the air makes it inside, the sudden temperature change freezes it, creating a buildup of ice around the cold surfaces.

While you can defrost a coil mechanically, to remove the ice, you need to shut off the system and clear it out by hand. This is not only a time-consuming and frustrating task, but it also means you’ll need another cold store to move the contents into, which can take hours of labour.

In some cases we’ve encountered businesses who are clearing the ice out of their cold stores on a weekly basis, and they turned to us because they concerned of the risk to life and were sick of the frustration. Thankfully, we had the perfect solution.