Chris Franklin, Chairman at Ranheat Engineering Ltd – a leading UK manufacturer of wood combustion equipment – continues his series of articles exclusively for Furniture and Joinery Production. This month, he writes further about the need for cooling in the summer, as well as heating in the winter.
The long, hot summer of 2026 will be remembered as a hot summer, but with global warming seeing temperatures all over the world on the increase, cooling the workplace could be more or as important as heating.
In certain countries (like the USA, Australia and the Middle East) factories cost more to cool in the summer than they do to heat in the winter.
Ranheat are well known for the manufacture and installation of industrial wood–fired boilers. Waste wood can also be utilised to cool the factories during high temperatures.
There are two main ways this can be achieved: one way is to use an ORC (organic Rankin Cycle) electrical generator to produce electricity to run a conventional Air conditioning unit, or to use an absorption cycle cooler.
The ORC is best suited to powering conventional AC units in offices, etc where they may already be fitted.
Some of these units can also be used for heating as well as cooling. Most have a wall-mounted unit inside the room and are connected to an external heat rejection unit, again wall-mounted.
The other advantage of having cool offices is that no one wants to work from home on hot days! (As I write this, Northampton is due to reach 36oC today and my office is at 18oC. thanks to an AC unit running on Solar Electricity.)
Now there is a minimum temperature in the workplace, but at the moment there is no maximum temperature specified. In areas where there is a high demand for a skilled workforce, having a warm factory in the winter and a cool factory in the summer will attract more workers to your site
For further information on all types and sizes of Industrial Woodburning equipment from 75 kW upwards, contact Ranheat on 01604 750005 or [email protected] Ranheat also make spares and service and repair other makes of woodburning boilers and heaters.
