Cooler and freezer panels: thickness is the R-value
The core decides the R-value per inch, and the thickness decides the rest. Pick the core first, then the thickness for the coldest thing the room will do.
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People shopping for cooler or freezer panels usually ask about thickness first. Ask about the core first. Two panels the same thickness can be a long way apart, and one of them may not be allowed in your building at all.
Two cores that look alike
A laminated panel with an expanded polystyrene core runs about R-4 per inch. It is a petroleum-based foam, and it has not been through the fire testing an insurer can ask for. If your insurer sets the standard for the building, that panel can be out before price comes up.
The panel we sell for cold storage has a urethane core, polyisocyanurate foamed in place. It runs about R-8 per inch. Same thickness, roughly twice the insulation.
Then thickness does the math
At R-8 per inch, a two inch panel is R-16, three inch is R-24, four inch is R-32 and five inch is R-40. Panels go up to eight inches.
Four inch is where most coolers and freezers start. A colder freezer moves to five inch, and colder than that to six. Tell us what the room holds and we will tell you which.
If there is any chance a cooler becomes a freezer later, build the wall for the freezer now. Running a freezer warmer is a settings change. Going the other way is construction.
Keep the joint tight
On cold storage we always order a tight reveal, an eighth of an inch or less. We want that joint closed. We do not want a gap where mold can grow.
Order white on both sides
There is a minimum run on all of this, about a thousand square feet per setup. Every change is a setup: one color to another, or stainless on one face and white on the other.
So a lot of the time we order white on both faces. On a liner panel the extra cost is incidental. And if a panel gets damaged, you can flip it and use the other side.
Send us the room size, what it holds and whether it might ever get colder. We will come back with the core, the thickness and the run that makes sense.
Watch it from the shop floor.
R-value by panel thickness
Keep the joint tight
Why order white on both sides
Sources
This piece is our own experience, from the shop and the job site. It cites no outside figure, so there is nothing here to source to anybody else.
Where this applies
- Cold storage panels for coolers, freezers and cold rooms.Kingspan QuadCore insulated panels, 2 to 8 in. thick, foamed in place, R-32 minimum to -20°F, with trim and Jamison doors. Installed by us or material-only.
- Freezer floor insulation designed before the slab.Sub-slab XPS for freezer and blast-freezer floors, graded 25, 40 and 60 psi by what stands on it, plus subfloor heat that keeps the ground below from freezing.
- Kingspan panels and freezer floor board.QuadCore KS Shadowline and KS Flat cold storage panels, K-Roc mineral fiber panels and GreenGuard XPS freezer floor board, with Kingspan data sheets and quotes.
- Insulated metal panels for rooms that hold a temperature.Insulated metal panels 2 to 8 in. thick at about R-8 per inch, fire-rated mineral fiber walls and Kingspan cold storage panels. Installed by us or material-only.
- Food processing wall panels, chosen by the room.Insulated panels for food plant rooms held cold, FRP or UtiLite PVC for wash-down rooms at room temperature. CLEANsafe and stainless faces. Cleveland.