Frost heave protection for cold store floors: a warm glycol loop under the slab, designed, tested and signed off as one system
A freezer pulls heat out of the ground beneath it until the groundwater freezes and lifts the slab. The usual defence in South Africa is an electric heater mat in a sand bed. We install the alternative that large European stores use: a pressure-tested glycol loop fed by heat pumps or by the refrigeration plant's own waste heat, holding the subfloor above 4 degrees for the life of the building.
What frost heave does How the system works Loop or mats What it costs For the engineer FAQ
The short answer. Frost heave is groundwater freezing under a cold store and lifting the floor. It starts once the subfloor drops to about plus 4 degrees, not zero, because groundwater carries impurities that freeze early. Insulation slows the heat loss; it can't stop it, so every freezer floor needs a heat source under the insulation. Synergy installs a glycol loop: 16 mm oxygen-barrier PERT pipe at 400 mm spacing carrying 40% propylene glycol at 15 to 20 degrees, which holds the floor at 4 to 5 degrees on about 20 W per m2. Installed cost on a 640 m2 freezer floor quoted in 2026 was R752 per square metre (m2) incl VAT for the pipe, manifolds, glycol and controls, plus the heat source: about R300 per m2 for a condenser heat recovery plant, R379 for fixed-speed heat pumps with a standby unit, R459 for inverter units. That puts the whole system at about R1,050 to R1,210 per m2, quoted from your drawings.
What frost heave does to a cold store floor
It is slow, it is silent, and once it has started there is very little that can be done about it.
The ground under a freezer wants to freeze
A freezer room runs at minus 18 to minus 25 degrees; a blast freezer at minus 30 to minus 40. Heat flows from warm to cold, so the ground under the slab loses heat upward into the room, all day, every day, for as long as the plant runs. Floor insulation slows that flow to a trickle, but a trickle over months and years is enough to pull the subgrade below freezing. Without a heat source under the insulation, the freezing front simply keeps moving down.
Freezing starts at plus 4, and the ice keeps growing
Pure water freezes at zero. Groundwater doesn't behave like pure water: salts, minerals and fine soil particles change the freezing behaviour, and the industry treats plus 4 degrees at subfloor level as the point where damage begins. Once an ice lens forms it draws more water toward itself from the surrounding soil, a process engineers call cryosuction, and grows. Water expands by about 9% when it freezes, and ice will lift almost any load placed on it.
The lift is uneven, which is what breaks things
If the whole floor rose evenly, the damage would be limited. It doesn't. The ice grows where the moisture is and where the insulation is weakest, so the slab domes and tilts. Racking goes out of plumb, mobile racking bases stop tracking at as little as 15 mm of movement, forklifts hit ridges, and the slab cracks along the lines of differential movement. South African freezer floors have been found lifted by 800 to 900 mm.
Chill stores aren't safe either
Frost heave was long treated as a freezer problem. Deciduous fruit stores running at minus 0.5 degrees year round have heaved too, because the subfloor sat below 4 degrees for months at a time. Any store that runs at or below zero continuously, and any chill store the operator may one day push colder, needs the same protection as a freezer.
What goes wrong with the usual approach
The South African default is an electric heater mat: three circuits of heating cable in a sand bed under the insulation, switched by a control box when a probe reads about 4 degrees. It works when it is installed, switched on and left alone. The failures the industry reports all come from those three conditions.
A glycol loop under the insulation, run as a piece of mechanical plant
The same closed-loop underfloor heating design we've put under 430+ residential and commercial floors since 2010, with the water temperature turned down and antifreeze in the loop. These are our standard design rules; the project engineer's specification overrides them where it differs.
| Heat transfer fluid | 40% FermaCool FG inhibited propylene glycol in demineralised water, freeze point minus 21 degrees. USP food-grade glycol with an inhibitor package approved as a food additive under EC and US FDA rules, free of nitrites, amines, borates and silicates, and tested for corrosion on copper, brass, steel and aluminium to ASTM D1384. An incidental leak is a nuisance, not a contamination. The 640 m² reference took 280 litres of concentrate. |
|---|---|
| Loop temperature | 15 to 20 degrees flow. Low enough for a heat pump to run at its best, warm enough to hold the floor. |
| Target subfloor temperature | 4 to 5 degrees at the probe, held continuously. Above the point where groundwater begins to freeze. |
| Design heat input | 20 W per m² (20 W per m2). It replaces the heat that leaks down through the insulation; it isn't sized to compensate for failed insulation. |
| Pipe | 16 mm oxygen-barrier PERT (or PEX where the engineer specifies it), clipped to REF100 mesh at 400 mm spacing, starting 150 mm in from the perimeter walls, in loops of about 100 m, in a cement screed or sand bed under the insulation. The 640 m² reference ran 19 circuits. Tighter than the 600 to 800 mm some overseas installers use, which gives more even coverage. For blast freezers the spacing can close up or the loop temperature rise, whichever the project engineer's heat load calls for; no two applications are the same. |
| Manifolds | Manifold stations in metal housings with temperature gauges and a flow meter on every circuit, so each pipe run is balanced to its design flow at commissioning and a lost circuit shows at a glance. Flow and return trenched to the plant room. Three stations and 38 m of flow and return on the 640 m² reference. Each circuit can be isolated at its valve port. |
| Controls and sensing | One staged digital controller per zone group with an NTC probe in the heated layer, run in conduit so it can be withdrawn and replaced without touching the floor. Actuators on every circuit, control base units in a cabinet. The 640 m² reference had eight controllers and probes over 19 circuits, so no probe is more than a few metres from the floor it reports on. |
| Heat source | Three options, priced separately below: condenser heat recovery through a plate heat exchanger; Samsung EHS inverter heat pumps (two 16 kW units on the reference, 32 kW out for 8 kW in, a COP of 4.0); or ITS fixed-speed units (three 11 kW, two duty and one standby, 33 kW out for 8.85 kW in, a COP of 3.7). All with a 500 litre hydraulic mixing vessel, WILO circulation pumps with a backup pump, expansion vessel, pressure relief and tempering valves. |
| Condenser heat recovery | A plate heat exchanger on the refrigeration plant's condenser side feeds the loop with heat the plant is rejecting anyway. Consulting engineers already draw it: a 2026 tender drawing for a freezer room specified the manifold position complete with sensors, buffer tank, pump and heat exchanger. Run as the main source it takes the running cost down to pump power; the heat pumps become optional standby. |
| Insulation | 40 mm DV 24 high-density polystyrene under the slab where the engineer specifies it, joints staggered; the tender drawing above carried 100 mm panels at the perimeter. Quoted separately from the heating system. |
| Testing | Every circuit pressure-tested to 6 bar before the insulation goes down and held at 6 bar through the pour and the rest of the cold-room build, so any damage by another trade shows on the gauge before the room is closed in. The gauge stays on the manifold for the life of the floor. |
Duty, standby, buffer and a gauge you can read from the door
The loop is fed from a plant room like any hydronic system: heat pumps in a duty and standby arrangement, a buffer tank to smooth their cycling, WILO circulation pumps, an expansion vessel and glycol make-up. On the 640 m² reference design the Gold option ran two 16 kW Samsung inverter heat pumps and the Silver option three 11 kW fixed-speed units, two on duty and one on standby, against a design load of about 12.8 kW. The margin is deliberate: pull-down on a new store and a failed unit in July should both be non-events.
Condenser heat recovery: the loop that costs almost nothing to run
A refrigeration plant rejects several times more heat at its condensers than a frost heave loop needs. A plate heat exchanger on the condenser side lifts the glycol to loop temperature using that rejected heat, and the heat pumps drop back to standby duty or out of the design altogether. The running cost of the floor protection then comes down to circulation pump power. This is how the larger European stores run their floors, it's what a consulting engineer specified on a 2026 freezer room tender we priced, and it's the configuration we design for wherever the refrigeration contractor will give us a tapping point.
One honest caveat: heat recovery cuts the running cost to almost nothing but only trims the installed price by about 10 to 15%, because the mixing vessel, pumps, valves, glycol and controls stay whichever heat source you choose.
Tested and held under pressure before anything is poured over it
Every circuit is connected to its manifold, filled and tested to 6 bar before the insulation goes down, and the loop stays at 6 bar through the pour and the whole of the cold-room build. If a later trade damages a pipe, the gauge on that manifold drops and the circuit's flow meter reads zero, and the circuit can be isolated while the others carry on. Once the slab is cast the loop is buried for the life of the building, which is exactly why we don't pour until the test is signed.
The honest comparison: mats are cheaper to install, and that's where their advantage ends
We're not going to tell you a glycol loop saves money on day one. It doesn't. The case is what happens in years two to twenty-five.
| Point of comparison | Glycol loop (Synergy) | Electric heater mats |
|---|---|---|
| Install cost | Higher. Pipe, manifolds, plant room and glycol: about R1,050 to R1,210 per m² on a 640 m² floor, depending on the heat source. | About R465 to R580 per m² installed, because three full circuits are laid for redundancy: roughly 40 to 55% of the loop. Our estimate from supplier list prices, not a quote. |
| Heat per unit of electricity | 3.5 to 4 units on a heat pump; far more on condenser heat recovery. | One unit. Resistive cable can't do better. |
| Cost per kWh of heat into the floor | R0.95 to R1.02 on a heat pump; pump power only on heat recovery. | R3.78 at the same tariff. |
| Blast freezers at minus 40 | Continuous heat at a controlled temperature; loop temperature can be raised for the load. | On and off against one probe; usually paired with glycol in a belt-and-braces design. |
| If it fails | Standby heat pump takes over. A pipe leak shows on the manifold gauge and the circuit is isolated. | Second and third circuits carry the load if the fault is in one cable. A cut across the bed, a tripped breaker or a switched-off box gives no warning. |
| Sensing and monitoring | One replaceable NTC probe per zone group, eight on the 640 m² reference, plus a flow meter and pressure gauge on every manifold. | Typically one or two probes per store; a mat's only signal is the current it draws. |
| Can staff switch it off by accident? | It's mechanical plant in a plant room, on the same footing as the refrigeration. | A wall-mounted control box, and yes, it happens. |
| Uses the refrigeration plant's waste heat | Yes, through a heat exchanger. | No. |
| Documentation | Design, pressure test certificate, commissioning report, CoC for the electrical work. | Electrical CoC for the circuits. |
| Where it's the right choice | Freezer stores, blast freezers, large floors, any store the engineer wants to specify and sign off as a system. | Small chillers above zero and tight budgets where the redundancy is accepted. |
Running cost: same heat, different price per unit
Whatever protects the floor has to replace the heat that leaks down through the insulation. A mat replaces it with one unit of electricity per unit of heat. A heat pump replaces it with a quarter of that. The ratio holds at any duty cycle, because both systems are replacing the same heat.
Cost per kilowatt-hour of heat into the floor
Incl VAT at R3.78 per kWh of electricity, an average commercial rate. The bar shows the range; the darker part is the low end.
Electricity at R3.78 per kWh incl VAT, a calculated average across the commercial tariffs cold stores sit on; your own rate will differ, the ratio between the bars won't. Heat pump COP 3.7 to 4.0, the rated figures of the fixed-speed and inverter plant on the 640 m² reference. Running cost only; plant, cable and installation excluded.
A 640 m² freezer floor, one year
20 W per m2 design heat input, 12.8 kW, running 50 to 80% of the time: 56,000 to 90,000 kWh of heat a year. The bar shows the range between those two duty cycles.
Duty cycle of 50 to 80% is what frost heave loops typically run at in our experience; the exact figure depends on the insulation, the ground moisture and the set point, and the same duty applies to a mat on the same floor. Whatever the duty, the gap between mat and heat pump stays at 3.7 to 4 to one. Over ten years the difference on this floor is R1.6 million to R2.5 million before tariff increases. Figures as at September 2026.
From about R1,050 per m² with heat recovery, R1,130 with heat pumps, quoted from your drawings
Every cold-store floor is priced as a project, not off a rate card. The figures below are the actual phases of a 640 m2 freezer slab we designed and quoted in 2026, so you can see what a real floor came to, where the money went, and what changes when the heat source changes.
| Phase | What it includes | Per m² | Whole floor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. In-floor pipe | 16 mm oxygen-barrier PERT at 400 mm on REF100 mesh, poly clips, 19 circuits, pressure test, supply and fitment | R356 | R227,900 |
| 2. Manifold housings and feed | Three metal manifold housings, 38 m of flow and return, trenching | R102 | R65,100 |
| 3. Manifolds and glycol | 19 manifold valve ports, temperature gauges, 280 litres of 40% inhibited propylene glycol | R141 | R90,500 |
| 4. Controls | Eight staged controllers, eight NTC probes, 19 actuators, three base units, cabinet, cabling and conduit | R153 | R98,000 |
| Floor system, phases 1 to 4 | Everything except the heat source | R752 | R481,500 |
Incl VAT, rounded, from the 2026 quote. Read every figure on this page as a from price: the floor above was a straightforward rectangle with the plant room close by, and blast freezer loads, long feed runs, extra zones, the refrigeration tie-in and site conditions all add to it. Underfloor insulation and travel beyond 100 km of a branch are separate lines.
Phase 5: the heat source, three ways
| Configuration | Plant | Phase 5, from | System total, from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Condenser heat recovery | Plate heat exchanger on the refrigeration plant, 500 litre mixing vessel, WILO circulation pumps with backup, expansion, relief and tempering valves. No heat pumps. Needs a tapping point from the refrigeration contractor. | About R300 | About R1,050 |
| Silver: fixed-speed heat pumps | Three ITS 11 kW units, two on duty and one standby, 33 kW out for 8.85 kW in, plus the same plant room balance | R379 | R1,130 |
| Gold: inverter heat pumps | Two Samsung EHS 16 kW inverter units, duty and standby, 32 kW out for 8 kW in, plus the same plant room balance | R459 | R1,210 |
| Heat recovery plus one standby heat pump | The recovery plant above with a single 11 kW fixed-speed unit as backup: the lowest running cost that still has a second source | About R355 | About R1,110 |
Incl VAT, rounded. The heat pump rows are the 2026 quote. The heat recovery rows are our estimate for the same floor: the plant room balance without heat pumps plus an allowance for the heat exchanger and tie-in, which is priced per project once the refrigeration design is known. Whole-floor totals: about R657,000 to R686,000 with heat recovery, R723,900 at Silver, R775,200 at Gold.
Which one? If the refrigeration contractor will give you a condenser tapping point, take heat recovery and add one standby heat pump. It costs about R100 per m² less than Gold, runs on pump power alone for most of the year, and still has a second heat source for the week the plant is down for maintenance. Heat pumps alone are the answer where the refrigeration plant is remote, shared or not yet designed.
What moves the price
Brings the cost per m² down
- Floor area. Plant, controls and site establishment spread over more square metres. A 2,000 m² store costs less per m² than a 640 m² one.
- Condenser heat recovery. Where the refrigeration plant gives us a tapping point, the heat pumps can be reduced to a single standby unit or left out, about R100 to R160 per m² off the Gold price.
- Plant room close to the floor. Short flow and return trenches.
- Silver plant. Fixed-speed heat pumps instead of inverter, R80 per m² less on the reference floor.
- Insulation already specified and supplied by the main contractor. We lay the loop; the polystyrene isn't on our quote.
Pushes the cost per m² up
- Blast freezer temperatures. More heat, tighter spacing or a warmer loop, larger plant.
- Many small rooms. More zones, more manifolds, more controllers per square metre.
- Extra standby. N+2 plant where the engineer wants it.
- Long trenches. A plant room on the far side of the site.
- Distance. Free site assessment within 100 km of Centurion, Cape Town or Polokwane; travel quoted as a line beyond that.
What we need from you, what you get from us, and where we fit in the programme
Frost heave protection is a mechanical system that has to be in the ground before the insulation, the vapour barrier and the slab. It goes right, or it goes wrong, at the sequencing stage.
What we need
- Floor plans and the slab design, with room temperatures per zone.
- Floor loads and the racking layout, so manifolds and probes sit clear of rails and fixed racks.
- The insulation specification: material, thickness, number of layers.
- Refrigeration plant details, and whether a condenser tapping point will be made available.
- Target subfloor temperature if it differs from our standard 4 to 5 degrees.
- The plant room position and the construction programme.
What you get
- A loop layout drawing with circuit lengths, manifold positions and probe positions.
- A heat input and plant sizing calculation for the engineer's file.
- A pressure test certificate per manifold, signed before the pour.
- A commissioning report: glycol concentration, flow rate per circuit as balanced at the flow meters, flow and return temperatures, probe readings by zone.
- A Certificate of Compliance for the electrical work installed by us.
- An operating note for the store manager: what the gauges should read and who to call.
Sequencing with the slab
- Subgrade compacted and blinded by the main contractor.
- We lay mesh, pipe and probes, trench the flow and return, and set the manifold housings.
- Pressure test, signed off, before the insulation goes down.
- Screed or sand bed over the loop, then the contractor's insulation, vapour barrier and slab.
- Plant room fit-out can run in parallel and is connected once the slab is cast.
- The loop is running and the subfloor at temperature before the room is pulled down.
What a tender drawing for this looks like. On a 2026 freezer room tender the consulting engineer's drawing called for 16 mm pipe in 100 m loops at 400 mm centres, 150 mm in from the perimeter walls, a 5 degree design floor temperature, 100 mm insulation panels, and a manifold position complete with sensors, buffer tank, pump and heat exchanger. We priced it in five phases, with 40 mm high-density polystyrene under the slab as a separate line. If your engineer has drawn something similar, send it; if they haven't yet, we'll give them the loop layout to draw from.
What we ask of the site. A structural engineer signs off the slab and any floating screed. The electrician brings a supply to a double-pole isolator at the plant and runs conduit from each controller position to the control cabinet; wiring to and from the distribution board is by the electrician, on earth leakage. Heat pumps need a 1.5 by 1.5 m concrete base per unit and a plant room with a tiled floor, a lip at the door and a drain. Nothing is switched on until 21 days after the screed to let it cure. Chasing, core drilling and cranage are outside our scope.
Who designs it. Every Synergy cold-store system is designed in-house to the consulting mechanical engineer's specification and installed by our own team: technician-installed, electrician-certified, CoC issued. An engineer's sign-off on the design is a requirement on every cold-store floor, not an option, because the heated layer sits under the structural slab and the design affects the building. If your project doesn't have one appointed yet, we'll work with whoever you bring in and give them the loop layout, the heat input calculation and the plant sizing to sign against.
Where heater mats are still the sensible choice
Small chillers above zero. A chill room of a few hundred square metres at plus 2 degrees, with thick staggered insulation and well-drained ground, may need very little heat and may never see the subfloor near 4 degrees. A mat with a properly set control box is a proportionate answer there, and a glycol loop with a plant room is not.
Tight budgets where the redundancy is accepted. Mats cost less to put in: with three full circuits laid, our estimate from supplier list prices is about R465 to R580 per m² installed, roughly 40 to 55% of what a glycol loop and its plant cost on the same floor, and less again if an installer lays a single circuit. If the operator understands that those circuits and a single probe are the whole safety margin, and is prepared to check the control box is on and drawing current every month, that is a legitimate decision. Our disagreement is with treating it as the default for freezers.
Things a glycol loop asks of you. It needs a plant room, glycol that is checked at service, and a gauge someone looks at. If a pipe were ever cut under the slab the circuit is lost, the same as a cable; the difference is that the gauge tells you, and the other circuits and the standby plant carry on. Overseas suppliers of heating cable point out that a leaking loop can put glycol into the ground. It's why we use food-safe propylene glycol and why we don't pour until the test is signed.
Where glycol is the only serious option. Freezer stores, blast freezers to minus 40, floors over 500 m², stores with mobile or automated racking that can't tolerate 15 mm of movement, and any project where the engineer wants one system to specify, test, commission and sign off. There we won't recommend mats, and we'll say so in the tender.
Cold store floor heating questions
What is frost heave under a cold store floor?
Frost heave is the ground under a cold store freezing and lifting the slab. Heat leaks down through the floor insulation into the room, the subgrade cools, and once it drops to about plus 4 degrees the groundwater begins to freeze. Ice expands by about 9%, draws more water toward itself and grows. The lift is uneven, so the slab domes, cracks and takes the racking out of level. Floors have been lifted by 800 to 900 mm.
Do chill stores above freezing need frost heave protection?
Any store that runs at or below zero continuously does. Deciduous fruit stores at minus 0.5 degrees have heaved because the subfloor sat below 4 degrees for months. A chill store at plus 2 or higher with good insulation and drainage may need little or no heating, but if there's any chance the operator will run it colder later, protect it at build stage: it can't be added under an existing slab.
How much does cold store floor heating cost per m2?
About R1,050 to R1,210 per m2 installed, incl VAT, on a large floor. A 640 m2 freezer slab we designed and quoted in 2026 came to R752 per m2 for the pipe, manifolds, glycol and controls, plus R379 per m2 for fixed-speed heat pumps with a standby unit or R459 for inverter units; a condenser heat recovery plant in place of the heat pumps comes to about R300. The pipework phase alone was R356 per m2. Insulation and travel beyond 100 km of a branch are separate lines. Every floor is quoted from drawings and a site visit.
Is a glycol loop better than electric heater mats?
It costs more to install and less to run, and it fails more gracefully. A three-circuit heater mat comes in at about R465 to R580 per m2 installed, roughly 40 to 55% of a glycol loop's cost on a large floor. A heat pump delivers 3.5 to 4 units of heat per unit of electricity where a mat delivers one, so the heat costs R0.95 to R1.02 per kWh against R3.78 at an average commercial rate. On a 640 m2 freezer floor that is R53,000 to R92,000 a year on a heat pump against R212,000 to R339,000 on mats. Condenser heat recovery brings it down to pump power. The loop runs from a plant room with a standby heat pump and a probe per zone group, and a pipe fault shows on the manifold gauge. Mats remain the sensible choice for small chillers above zero and for tight budgets where the redundancy is accepted.
What glycol concentration and loop temperature do you run?
40% inhibited propylene glycol in demineralised water, freeze point minus 21 degrees, at 15 to 20 degrees flow, holding the subfloor at 4 to 5 degrees at the probe on a design input of about 20 W per m2. We use FermaCool FG, a USP food-grade propylene glycol whose inhibitor package is approved as a food additive, with no nitrites, amines, borates or silicates, rather than ethylene glycol, so an incidental leak isn't a contamination event. The 640 m2 reference took 280 litres of concentrate. The engineer can specify a different concentration or target temperature and we design to it.
Can the loop use waste heat from the refrigeration condensers?
Yes, and consulting engineers are already specifying it: a 2026 tender drawing we priced called for a heat exchanger at the manifold position. A plate heat exchanger on the condenser side lifts the glycol to loop temperature using heat the plant is rejecting anyway, and the heat pumps become an optional standby. The running cost drops to circulation pump power. On the installed price it saves about 10 to 15%, because the mixing vessel, pumps, valves and controls stay. We need a tapping point and flow data from the refrigeration contractor at design stage, which is why we ask for the plant details with the drawings.
What happens if a heat pump fails in winter?
The standby unit carries the load. Every cold-store design includes at least one heat pump more than the duty requirement: two 16 kW inverter units or three 11 kW fixed-speed units against a 12.8 kW load on the 640 m2 reference. The buffer tank carries the loop through the changeover. The subfloor has a lot of thermal mass, so a short outage doesn't move the floor; a long one with no standby does.
What if a pipe is damaged after the slab is cast?
The gauge on that manifold drops, the circuit's flow meter reads zero, and the circuit is isolated at its valve port while the neighbouring circuits keep the area warm. The loop is laid at 400 mm spacing, so one lost circuit leaves the floor with heat on either side of it. The pipe sits under the insulation in a cement screed or sand bed, below the depth of most anchor bolts, and the loop drawing we hand over shows every circuit so later works can avoid them. If a leak does need finding, we locate it with a thermal imaging camera rather than by opening the floor.
What do you need from the consulting engineer to quote?
Floor plans with room temperatures per zone, the slab and insulation specification, floor loads and the racking layout, the refrigeration plant details and whether a condenser tapping point is available, the plant room position and the programme. From that we return a loop layout, a heat input and plant sizing calculation, and a phased quote for the engineer to sign off; every cold-store floor needs that sign-off because the heated layer sits under the structural slab. A site visit before we fix the price is standard.
When in the build does the heating layer go in, and how long does it take?
After the subgrade is compacted and blinded and before the insulation, vapour barrier and slab. We lay the mesh, pipe and probes, trench the flow and return and set the manifold housings, then pressure-test and sign off before the contractor covers it. On a 640 m2 floor that's a matter of days on site. Lead time from accepted quote to pipe on site is 7 to 10 working days, depending on the size of the system. Heat pumps are ordered on acceptance and can take longer to land, which doesn't hold up the floor: the plant room is fitted out after the slab is cast.
Can frost heave protection be retrofitted into an existing cold store?
Not under an existing slab without lifting it. Where a store is being refloored, a glycol loop goes in with the new floor in the normal way. Where a floor has already heaved, melting the ice and letting the floor settle is slow and uncertain, and the honest advice is to get an engineer to assess the slab before spending anything on heating.
Where do you install?
Nationally, from Centurion, Cape Town and Polokwane. The site assessment is free within 100 km of a branch; beyond that, travel is quoted as a separate line upfront. Commercial installations have taken our team across South Africa since 2010.
Related pages
Powering the cold store
Refrigeration is a daytime load, which is what solar is best at.
Send us the drawings
Tell us about the store and our system designers will come back with a loop layout, a plant sizing calculation and a phased quote, after a site visit.
Prefer to talk? Call 010 601 6464 or WhatsApp 069 272 5602