Cold room curtain

A strip curtain across a cold room doorway reduces the exchange of air every time the door is opened. On a busy preparation room or a loading bay the door may be open for minutes at a time, and the curtain is what keeps the cold air in place while a trolley passes through.

The strips are soft PVC, formulated to stay flexible at low temperature - the material is specified to remain non-rigid at -40 C, which is the point of the product. A standard PVC strip stiffens in a freezer, then cracks at the hanger within a season.

Strips are supplied in clear, amber and green. Clear is the usual choice where visibility through the doorway matters; amber and green are used to mark a doorway or to distinguish one area from another. The strips hang from a galvanised rail with individual hooks, so a damaged strip can be replaced on its own rather than as a set.

Selection is by doorway width and height, and by the temperature of the room: the colder the room, the more important the low-temperature formulation and the thicker the strip. Overlap between strips should be about 30 to 50 per cent, enough to seal without making the curtain hard to push through.

Installation: mount the rail above the doorway clear of the door swing, and hang the strips so they just clear the floor - a strip dragging on the floor wears through at the bottom edge and a strip hanging too high leaves a gap at the bottom where the cold air escapes.