WITH approximately 111 million tonnes of the UK’s 659 million tonne carbon footprint being emitted by the food industry and with refrigeration and ac accounting for over 10% of worldwide carbon emissions, sustainable, high-efficiency, low-carbon systems must be produced using material and technologies to safeguard the environment.
It was with this goal in mind that Stonegate Instruments developed a range of energy saving equipment – the Door Open Alarm system for food industry refrigerators, the Cold Room Logger for temperature monitoring and the Transducer Trip Module to measure moisture content.

Shaun Evers, Stonegate Instruments’ md said: “All our refrigeration alarm systems are designed to reduce energy and food product waste and to help our customers increase efficiency and productivity and reduce operating costs.

“More than 4,000 supermarkets have an average of five cold rooms, each with its own cooling and lighting facilities. The Door Open Alarm system is a simple solution to the ever-increasing problem of refrigerator doors being left open for long periods of time, wasting energy and causing food products to perish.”

The Door Open Alarm system is a large and loud warning device using a flashing Xenon Beacon and up to two 100dB sounders, which when fitted to a cold room door provide both audible and visual warnings that the door has been left open for an extended amount of time. The alarm is designed to help customers avoid major energy loss, damage to merchandise and the associated costs caused by leaving refrigeration doors open.

Stonegate Instruments’ monitoring of one frozen food cold room for one week revealed some interesting data:

• a total of 226 visits were made, with an average of 32 visits per day

• the maximum time the cold room door was left open was 53 minutes

• the maximum time between visits to the cold room was three hours

• the average time between visits was 17 minutes

• the door was open for more than 30 minutes five times a week

The statistics demonstrate the high potential for energy waste that cold room doors can pose.

Door Open Alarm orders

A major fast-food chain has installed Stonegate’s Door Open Alarm devices in 500 outlets across the UK and recently placed an order for an additional 50 devices.

The Door Open Alarm system will also soon be made available to a wider audience.

An alarm with a ramping sound is being developed for sound sensitive areas such as in hospitals, and Stonegate Instruments is currently working on a ‘speaking’ Door Open Alarm to give a more gentle warning in sound sensitive areas.

Stonegate Instruments also offers Cold Room Loggers. Used for cold room temperature analysis, the data logger has inputs for measuring temperature, door contacts and current transducers.

Data is stored at regular intervals to the memory ready for access by USB connection to laptops and can be retrieved at any time, ensuring that chilled food is always stored at the correct temperature and energy is not wasted.

Stonegate Instruments is also planning to offer logging facilities on its temperature monitoring and alarm product ranges.

In addition, the company now produces a range of temperature controllers with energy saving potential for heat reclaim applications, where the ambient temperature is used for heating or comfort cooling. In another bid to maintain system efficiency, save energy and reduce compressor failure, Stonegate Instruments has developed a Transducer Trip Module that is used with moisture level transducers to monitor moisture content in refrigeration equipment which can cause system inefficiency and early refrigeration equipment failure.

Stonegate Instruments, established in the 1970s, was one of the first companies to develop glass door heater economisers and the first company to introduce electronic annunciators.

Stonegate Instruments

0113 262 8280