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Running a warehouse or manufacturing facility isn’t easy.
Every day, you’re expected to keep product moving in, around, and out the door. Faster. Safer. With fewer problems and zero incidents.
That’s a lot to carry. It can feel like an impossible ask, but we’re here to help make it possible.
On this show, we dig into the real challenges happening on the floor and at the loading dock. Each episode, you’ll hear from industry experts, operators, and problem-solvers who share practical ways to improve quality, boost productivity, and keep facilities running smoothly.
Our goal is simple. Share new ways to tackle challenges that never seem to end so your people and your product get in, around, and out the door safely. You ready to clock in?
Sami Aslam (00:00):
I like to compare air curtains just like your primary HVAC equipment, like your rooftop unit or your heating unit. It will provide you cost savings. It will provide you return on investment, but you just have to wait it out depending on how many times your door opens, whether it's a two-year payback, whether it's a three-year payback or five-year payback.
Cullen Luning (00:19):
Employee comfort, which is often overlooked. Maybe that's better workflow. It can't just be a dollar amount. You have to look at the whole picture, your whole operation.
Mike Smith (00:31):
Clocking in, the podcast for people who keep products moving in and out of industrial facilities every day. I'm your host, Mike Smith, director of product at Robert Dietrick Company. All right, well, welcome to the Clocking In Podcast brought to you by the Robert Dietrick Company. I'm your host, Mike Smith, and I have with us today two experts from Schwank USA, Cullen Luning, and Sami Aslam.
Cullen Luning (00:59):
Thanks for having us. Hey guys,
Sami Aslam (01:00):
Thank you. Yeah, appreciate it.
Mike Smith (01:02):
So to get started, give me a little background on yourselves, Schwenk, and we'll reveal what the topic is here in a minute, but tell us about yourselves to get us kicked off. I've
Cullen Luning (01:12):
Been with the Schwank Group going on 12 years now. Actually, prior to Schwank, I was in the material handling dock and door business in the Cincinnati market, so selling anywhere from shelters, racking, forklifts, and really getting into that. And then ever since then, I've been in the Schwank Group since. So it's been a long time within the industry and then coming back to the industry.
Mike Smith (01:32):
Nice.
Sami Aslam (01:32):
I'm the product manager for air movement division at Schwank USA. My background in mechanical engineering, and then after school I started working with Schwank. So been with Schwank for about six years now, and it's been a great journey and just developing new products and bringing them to market.
Mike Smith (01:49):
Awesome. So excited to have you guys with us. So today's conversation's going to start with a question. If we walked into a facility this afternoon and did an assessment on where that facility is losing energy, what are some of the areas where facilities typically lose energy? Give me some examples.
Sami Aslam (02:10):
Lighting, your roofs, you're losing your conditioned air places, but -
Cullen Luning (02:16):
Non-insulated buildings just in general. It's just a leaky building. So non-insulated buildings, anything through basically an opening.
Mike Smith (02:24):
Yeah. We deal with customers all the time. They're frustrated about energy loss. They're losing them all kinds of different areas. Lighting is always a hot point, especially nowadays. Lighting upgrade projects are always big. But what we want to talk about today is an area that is often overlooked, misunderstood, and that's the area that you guys specialize in. Talk to me a little bit about that. Where are we seeing the most energy loss?
Cullen Luning (02:50):
Well, one thing that we get into outside of this that leads into what we're going to be talking about is we do heat loss for entire facilities. And reason why we got into this product of air curtains, which is topic of today is because - Spoiler alert. Where air curtains provide the significant energy savings in a facility.
Mike Smith (03:11):
Yeah.
Sami Aslam (03:12):
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Cullen. And yeah, any openings in your dock doors in your warehouse where there's a door that opens up every time there's a trailer that docks, that's where you're losing energy. And that's where we come in as air curtains.
Mike Smith (03:27):
So it sounds like you're going to agree with what I'm about to say, the quote I'm about to say, but agree or disagree. Most facilities don't have an HVAC problem. They have an open door problem. Agree?
Sami Aslam (03:40):
100%. I absolutely agree. That open door, you're losing your conditioned air. And conditioned air is expensive. Whether it's heating or cooling, you're using your dollars, you're using energy, you're using some type of fuel to basically cool or heat that space. And with any openings, you're losing that. And the most important idea is preserve it. How do you preserve it?
Mike Smith (04:02):
The thing that's frustrating is they got to stay open. In a lot of cases, you're not only fighting human behavior, but they have to stay open.
Cullen Luning (04:08):
You have to ask yourself is, where am I losing the energy in general? Where's the energy going? Is it being trapped up in the ceiling? Where's it being lost significantly that you have to ramp up that and to work so hard to get that building back in a comfort temperature?
Mike Smith (04:22):
So in case our listeners haven't figured it out yet, we've got you both here from Schwank USA. We're going to be talking about air curtains. Again, overlooked, maybe even misunderstood. So what we want to do today is cover how air curtains work. We want to talk about where in the facility they make sense, but we specifically want to spend some time talking about what kind of ROI are we going to see or if my facility was going to take the leap on investing in some air curtains. And then lastly, how can facility leaders justify the investment? Does that sound good? Good agenda?
Sami Aslam (04:55):
100%. Let's do it.
Mike Smith (04:56):
I'm going to ask you guys a lot of questions. We're going to, for once, listen into our experts talk. I'm excited about that. So let me start out with this question. Let's get a good working definition of what an air curtain is.
Sami Aslam (05:08):
They're one of the critical pieces of HVAC equipment in my opinion. Sometimes they're overlooked or even considered a secondary piece of HVAC, but they're not. They're critical. Air curtains are basically, there is motors, there is blowers, there is fans inside it that provide ceiling, that provide climate separation. So there's a jet of airstream that comes out of your diffuser from an air curtain, goes on the wall, and then they basically separate your inside versus outside space. So now if you have hot air outside or cold air outside, depending on the season, you have bugs, insects, fumes, odors, anything that's outside, they don't intermix with your conditioned air on the inside. And it increases your occupancy comfort, saves your conditioned air, and then keeps everything, all the foreign objects on the outside and increases occupancy comfort.
Mike Smith (06:00):
Elaborate a little bit more on the science and the engineering of it. It's shooting down an invisible air blade. Correct. Creating separation. And where is the air being focused? And then once it reaches the floor or another surface to bounce off of, what's the science behind what it's doing?
Sami Aslam (06:21):
It's basically creating an invisible barrier, like you said, and it works on pressure differentials. So what it does is the air jet comes down. It needs to be under 800 feet per minute for it to be effective. If it's more than 800 feet per minute at the ground level, and I'm talking air velocity, it's turbulence airflow, so it will not seal. Now, if it's way less than 400 even, it will not seal. It needs to be between four and 800. Less than 400 is weak. More than 800 is too strong, too turbulent. So it needs to be within that range depending on where you mount the air curtain. And then it hits the ground, splits, and it ensures that, like I mentioned, your outside air stays outside, your inside air stays inside, and you get decent climate separation.
Mike Smith (07:06):
So let's just use the dock door opening, for instance, and stay on the science and engineering kick. Specifically at the dock door when it's standing open. You talked a minute ago about some of the things that the invisible blade or the air curtain is actually repelling versus keeping in. Stick on the science and engineering of it. What am I literally keeping out of my facility when that air curtain is on and working effectively at the dock door opening? And what am I keeping in that I want to stay in?
Sami Aslam (07:37):
Let's take a look at it from an end user's point of view. Someone who is working at the dock door, let's say it's winters outside, so you're saving your heated air, which we all know how expensive it is to heat an industrial building or a commercial building, any building, even your homes. So you're saving your conditioned air, which is your hot air in winter season. You're basically ensuring that your indoor air quality is not going down. That's a big factor. So imagine things that affect indoor air quality. It could be dust from outside. It could be fumes. It could be carbon monoxide coming out of the trailers or idling trucks, anything. So you're keeping all that outside. So on the inside, you are increasing your ROI. And at that point, the biggest thing is employee comfort. Imagine someone is working in there and opens the door and it's so cold outside.
(08:27):
They're not being productive and we don't want that. You want your employees to be comfortable when they're working at their jobs. I think that's the most critical thing. So you're basically saving all those things. You're saving your conditioned air, you're increasing your employee comfort, and at the same time, increasing your indoor air quality.
Cullen Luning (08:44):
And what that does in that space is specifically with aircraft because heat travels faster than cold air at the end of the day. So specifically in this Indianapolis market or Midwest or anything above the equator almost besides Florida and Texas, which stays just smoking hot. Yeah, don’t wanna live there. But how hot air travels is so much quicker. So heating your facility and being able to gather that amount of square footage of putting heat back into your facility that's already lost through that open space. And air curtain does that significantly, and that's what provides that amount of savings.
Mike Smith (09:19):
When a customer's leaving a dock door open or any door, I guess, talk to me about what's actually happening. You got things like working your HVAC way too hard. We already talked about conditioned air loss, humidity, employee discomfort. What are some of the things that are happening at that door opening that are putting an unknown strain on other systems inside the facility like HVAC?
Sami Aslam (09:44):
You mentioned about strain on HVAC equipment. That's a big deal. Those HVAC equipments, any HVAC equipment is very expensive. You don't want troubleshooting, fixing it all the time just because it's working over time when you could save that. So those are some of the hidden benefits of an air curtain. You don't see it right away, but over time you will notice them. So let's say the door is open, it's winter season, it's cold outside, door opens. Whether it's your heater or duct heater or radiant heater, whatever it is in your industrial space, it's working so hard to constantly catch up to the weather elements just because it's cold. The cold air comes in, your temperature goes down below 72, and then suddenly the employees start feeling discomfort. Your thermostat kicks in and the heater kicks in. So to prevent all that strain, air curtains prevent that.
Cullen Luning (10:33):
And let's get into what typically you're heating your warehouses with, which are typically rooftop units, unit heaters in space, things that are heating cubic mass within that space. We're filling this whole space up with cubic mass of air. It's filling it up with air in order to keep it warm. That's what you're doing in your facility alone, but it's having to work that much harder with 20 foot, much taller ceiling heights. And once that air gets pulled out, how will we be able to deliver that air down to the ground? Well, if you don't stop that at the door, well, guess what? It's going to have to work that much harder. That unit's not used to doing consistently time and time over again. But what can you not go without either in a facility? You can't go without heat.
Mike Smith (11:14):
No.
Cullen Luning (11:14):
Freezing pipes. Anything else of that? I've seen more pipe breaks in my life with these cold spells that have been coming in.
Mike Smith (11:20):
So you
Cullen Luning (11:21):
Have to stop it from infiltration, but heat loss going out.
Mike Smith (11:25):
Back to the loading dock. You might hear someone say, "Well, I've got seals. I've got dock seals. When the trailer backs up, it's sealed. I don't need an air curtain." Oh yeah. Okay. When do dock seals and shelters stop being effective? And when would I need an air curtain? Not just to supplement my HVAC in my building, but also the loading dock seals at every loading dock. When do I need an air curtain then? And what's the problem with dock seals? Why aren't they fully sufficient, I guess?
Cullen Luning (11:55):
So what happens with anything with dock seals and dock shelters?
Mike Smith (12:00):
They get hit. Wear and
Cullen Luning (12:01):
Tear. They get worn. Wear and tear. You don't have a proper seal all the time. There's different heights of a dock trailer. A new truck is coming in that's not quite hitting that dock height or that door height in that case. But also too, what's sealing in the back of that trailer? Whether it's a reefer truck or whether it's a standard truck, there's still air penetration that's coming in from that space that is unconditioned. So why need an air curtain? They go hand in hand with each other, which is a beautiful thing. So yeah, having a dock seal to eliminate light that an air curtain's not. Same thing with a shelter or some of these other products in the marketplace around the outside of a dock. The inside helping the infiltration to separate those climates in that case. And that's a huge factor why they go hand in hand.
(12:45):
And it's almost doing one without the other is you can't. You need them both together. I
Mike Smith (12:51):
Think a really practical example of that is when you look at food delivery services, people with chilled docks -
Cullen Luning (12:59):
Pharmaceuticals.
Mike Smith (13:00):
Yes. Or people that are backing up a route of delivery trucks and trailers, there's a huge variance of the type of truck or trailer that backs up to those docks. You might see a courier van one minute. You might see a box truck the next minute. Yo might see an LTL trailer, a reefer unit, all kinds of different trailers in one specific type of seal or shelter is not sufficient to seal all those types of trucks. And people have these beautiful facilities. Their HVAC systems are working overtime to chill a large dock area. And I just walk by the loading docks and see van, van, box truck. And the seal is not sealing. No. Absolutely. Money's just flying out the dock door opening. And I think, man, you need an air curtain right there.
Sami Aslam (13:46):
Imagine the weather elements and cycles that the dock seal has to go through on the outside. You have to replace them so much often compared to an air curtain where an air curtain goes on the inside and with proper maintenance, they can run forever. I think by the time you would have to replace a motor without any maintenance on an air curtain, you might have gone through five dock seals. Your ROI is already gone at that point for any savings. Plus on top of that, imagine your courier trucks and box trucks and everything that are not even sealing against it. So I was looking at some stats. So in reality, all the dock doors across North America, I think only eight to 10% of them have air curtains. The 90% of them have dock seals and they're losing all this expensive conditioned air without putting an air curtain on there.
(14:34):
So it's a lost opportunity in my opinion.
Mike Smith (14:36):
Do you guys go to Costco? Are you Costco people or Sam's Club people?
Sami Aslam (14:40):
Sometimes Costco, yeah.
Cullen Luning (14:41):
Typically walk around just to sample.
Mike Smith (14:45):
I love walking in places like Costco or wherever, restaurants, you name it. Places that have doors standing open constantly. It always amazes me. Middle of Indiana winter, doors wide open, people going in and out constantly. How well an air curtain actually makes the environment as soon as you step into the store, you are not cold and you are just inches in front of that air curtain. They're very, very effective. And translate that to the loading dock.
Cullen Luning (15:11):
I want to challenge everybody next times I've gotten an air curtain that's sold them for over 14 years and now working for a manufacturer that we actually manufacture them to customers such as yourself is everywhere I'm looking, I'm looking, oh, why is this? What's this stream of air? See an air curtain that's perfect, could have been fitting in here. But I challenge you to look at those people standing next to those doors too. What are they wearing typically when an air curtain's in place? They're typically wearing what we're wearing now, even on a cold day. And they're 15 feet from the door. So this showing how much utilization and how much there's a huge belief behind the science of an air curtain.
Mike Smith (15:46):
I show this to people all the time. We have a couple schwank air curtains, three actually in our shop, a couple three by seven entry doors. And then I think our ram door is like a 12 by 14 ram door, typical of what a lot of facilities would see. And I love turning on the air curtain. And especially if they don't have a jacket on or something, I'll raise that door up middle of winter and I'll say, "All right, stand outside. Now just move 12 inches in and stand right here.You're comfortable. It's amazing how effective they are. They're comcomfortable. So besides the loading dock then, where else in a facility would we want to see air curtains? Talk to me about some other applications besides the loading dock.
Cullen Luning (16:24):
So where we always look at air curtains that are going to be most effective and also create an ROI for an end user or any application, high-revolution doors. Indoors are seeing a high amount of revolutions is going to be a perfect type of application of where an air curtain's going to be the most suitable, but also create the most effectiveness for your facility. That's going to eventually lead to why there's a good ROI behind it.
Mike Smith (16:49):
To go back to the chilled dock example, usually on the other side of a chilled dock is what? A freezer. Exactly. A deep freezer. Sometimes minus 20, minus 30. And those doors are high cycling. People are driving through them, staging material to be loaded on the trailers. For us, that's a great place to consider putting an air curtain because you are separating environments at that point.
Sami Aslam (17:10):
Added benefit to putting an air curtain outside a cooler freezer door, mainly freezer is preventing ice buildup.
Mike Smith (17:17):
Such
Sami Aslam (17:17):
A big factor. You put a heated air curtain outside a high speed roll-up door or any door that has a freezer on the back, that's a huge plus point. You will have no frost buildup or ice build up at the bottom of the door, no slipping hazards,
Mike Smith (17:31):
None
Sami Aslam (17:31):
Of that stuff. The heated air curtain constantly, constant cycles. You have a human stat paired with a heated air curtain and constantly keeps cycling air and ensures that there is no frost buildup because of the heat.
Cullen Luning (17:42):
And you're looking in those applications to stay on that cold storage is they're typically not where we've found back where warehousing was less expensive. Now it's gotten so expensive per square footage, and especially when you're dealing with refrigeration and cold storage, is they're going taller. They used to go from a freezer to a cooler and then to a dock space. Now we're just going straight to 60, 70, 80 degree warm air where that's increasing that ice buildup in those cycles. And how much you're going in and out of those spaces is just fluctuating even more than let's just say 10 years ago when real estate was less per square footage. So costing a lot more, but this energy savings even more crucial in this case to utilize an air curtain that's going to help separate those environments versus where you're at today.
Mike Smith (18:28):
What about QA labs? 100%.
Sami Aslam (18:30):
Yeah, quality labs. And air curtains can go almost anywhere where there is a door. And there's a big, big requirement in you of air curtains up on the commercial side, your office doors, your hospital doors, your institutions, schools, grocery stores, anywhere. Because anywhere back to Collins Point, it's a high traffic opening. People are walking in and out of the door. It's open to outside air. You need an air curtain to save that air. And honestly, to a point where now air curtains are now mentioned in the building code. So basically if you have an AMCA or ANSI AMCA 220 certified air curtains, you have an exception to vestibule. Now imagine in these commercial spaces where you have this expensive vestibules, they cost hundreds, thousands of dollars to put up a vestibule. Imagine you can get rid of it by just installing an AMCA certified air curtain and that's -
Cullen Luning (19:23):
Constantly overlooked.
Mike Smith (19:24):
I'm thinking airlocks and gowning areas too. A lot of pharma and medical facilities, not just like QA labs and all the other examples we've cited, but a lot of places have a large airlocks where people got to leave a non - GMP area, get gowned up. It's yet another example of where you would want to use an air curtain, maybe in conjunction with a high speed door or whatever, but very effective. And I don't think people think of that very often.
Cullen Luning (19:47):
You mentioned pharmaceuticals, but pharmaceuticals from FDA facilities that are controlled by the FDA, food processing, where's the thing that they need to seal the most out of their facilities? Bugs, right? The number one way to seal those or to keep bugs out of your facility is by utilizing an air curtain or keeping your doors closed constantly because that's the only way you can do it. So you can't do that, right? You see
Mike Smith (20:10):
The insect-o-cuters mounted everywhere. Okay, they're effective, but just keep them out to begin with. Just keep up with that.
Cullen Luning (20:16):
When you see bug zappers inside a facility, it sounds like that's a perfect opportunity to have an air curtain in that space.
Mike Smith (20:20):
I won't name the facility, but long ago I walked into a facility that had a raccoon trap sitting on a loading dock. Now I know an air curtain's not going to address that issue, but I though, man, you guys have some serious ceiling problems here. Seeing a raccoon trap. Wow. Wow. So I think everyone listening now fully understands there is energy loss happening. Maybe some of the areas that they thought the most energy loss was happening in a facility aren't actually. It's really at your loading docks and you really have a problem probably with open doors more than anything else. I want to explore now what the actual cost is, and then we'll get into what the actual ROI is on air curtains and hopefully help people feel better about making that investment. And I want to ask some really honest questions of you guys.
(21:05):
So first off, how much conditioned air can a facility lose through a dock door? And is there a standard or typical cost you can assign to that? Just a normal nine by 10 dock door opening, what are you typically losing in dollars through that opening annually without an air curtain?
Cullen Luning (21:26):
We can give you all these ranges based on the upgrades of severity, but working off percentages I think is always going to be the appropriate way so you're not misleading at the end of the day. But 20 to 30% of cost savings of what you're going to find in your facility, whether it's heating or cooling costs.
Sami Aslam (21:40):
Anytime there is a dock door, like the standard doctor you told me, anytime it's open, your air infiltration is anywhere from 60 to 70%. So imagine what you can save with that. So if you save that 60 to 70% of the air outside air coming in and back to Collins Point, you can save up to 30% on your cost.
Mike Smith (21:59):
So real honest question here, and I know a lot of listeners are probably thinking this, how do you justify spending a few thousand dollars on an air curtain against. It just produces an invisible air blade. You're not buying a piece of machinery that cleans or you don't really see a tangible result. But how do you justify spending the cost upfront for an air curtain versus maybe not being able to see the literal tangible results for one?
Sami Aslam (22:29):
Yeah, I like to compare air curtains just like your primary HVAC equipment, like your rooftop unit or your heating unit, anything. So any primary HVAC equipment, air curtains are similar to that, and that's how we have to look at it. They're not secondary piece of equipment in my opinion. So once you take a look at it from that lens, it is primary and it will provide you cost savings. It will provide you return on investment, but you just have to wait it out depending on how many times your door opens, whether it's a two-year payback, whether it's a three-year payback or five-year payback. It all depends, goes back to how many dock doors do you have? Is it a 24-hour facility? Is it eight-hour facility in the day? And then what type of air curtain do you have? Is it heated or is it an ambient air curtain?
(23:14):
So those are all the factors that amount into your ROI. But yes, you don't see your return investment day one, but over time when you count into that and when you take into the factor that your indoor air quality and employee comfort is going up, that's where that's the real -
Cullen Luning (23:31):
Yeah, just hit on it there. What do you base your ROI off of exactly? Yes.
Mike Smith (23:34):
I like where we're going
Cullen Luning (23:35):
Here. There's plenty of facilities we've worked within this Indianapolis market and Indiana in general is that they've looked at employee comfort, which is often overlooked. But the customers that have the end users that have invested in that, maybe that's better workflow. Maybe that's more that they're going to have an ROI that might seem quicker to them because they're going to have better productivity in that case. So you're looking at all these other factors, that ceiling off a door and creating that environment that's warmer, and then that's not creating all these obstructions in that space is going to be beneficial. So it depends on what your ROI is based off of at the end of the day, because it can't just be a dollar amount. You have to look at the whole picture, your whole operation. And that's something the customer has to ask themselves, not only piece of equipment, but your entire operation.
Mike Smith (24:21):
I agree, man. Employee retention and just morale, quality of manufacturing, those are the hidden things that are so hard to calculate when you talk about ROI, and I'm glad we're touching on it. Absolutely. But the cost it takes to onboard somebody, hire, acquire good people, keep them happy. It seems silly that an air curtain on a loading dock door would help with that, but it does. When people are happier for eight hours or you're asking them to stay another couple hours after their shift is already over, having a better, more well-conditioned space that feels cooler or feels warmer and is comfortable to work in does wonders. You're right, you can't track that on a piece of paper or a spreadsheet.
Cullen Luning (25:03):
Maybe HR can, but you never know. They can.
Mike Smith (25:07):
They can.
Cullen Luning (25:07):
There's a level of complaints.
Mike Smith (25:09):
Would you say then that customers typically find that they recover the investment faster than they would expect? I mean, what does their ROI period look like? Is it two years, three years? There's probably variables in there, but a standard answer, what would you say or how fast will go? Range
Cullen Luning (25:26):
Two to five years on this. Yeah,
Sami Aslam (25:28):
Absolutely.
Cullen Luning (25:28):
Yeah. Depending on the door revolutions, depending on obviously the many applications we've already talked about, it's really just going to be variable based upon that. If we're just talking about a standard dock door, but seeing four hours usage a day, probably going to look at a two to three year payback on that.
Sami Aslam (25:44):
And then on top of that, if you paired up with any utility rebates available, because there are utility rebates available on air curtain - Yes, I'm so
Mike Smith (25:51):
Glad you're bringing this up. I'm so glad you're bringing
Sami Aslam (25:54):
This up. Your ROI would be much, much lower because there are utility rebates out there that could cover even install costs, half of the air curtain cost, full air curtain cost. It's all different kinds. Custom, prescriptive, you name it. There's out there across North America.
Mike Smith (26:08):
This is something I don't know. And I want to park here for a minute since you brought it up. Talk to me practically. I'm a building owner or a facility manager, and I listen to a podcast like this and I'm like, "Bro, I want to go out and get air curtains. It sounds like a great investment. I do all my homework. I install them and I love them." Do you contact your power company to get that to measure? Or how does that work? Yeah,
Cullen Luning (26:31):
There's several ways to look at it. If there are no rebates that are withstanding within that state or the province or that city where you're located, you can always go and apply for one directly just for your facility alone with your power company.
Mike Smith (26:46):
I did not know that.
Sami Aslam (26:46):
Exactly. So there's prescriptions custom. Exactly. Yeah. You can just submit, "Hey, we installed an air curtain. This is how much energy we'll save." And they will provide you rebate for that. Some places it's directly available on their website. It will show you if your door is nine by 10, you'll get up to four grand or five grand. And plus another, I don't know, three grand on installation cost. Some of them also covers installation costs. Yes. So yes, that easy. In a lot of cases, you can almost get an air curtain for free and save energy. And that's the whole idea. But there is a caveat to that. As long as you're installing an ambient air curtain with AMCA certification.
Mike Smith (27:30):
Ah, okay. What is AMCA certification? Talk to us about that. What's AMCA? Why is it sought after?
Cullen Luning (27:36):
Someone perfect here for it.
Sami Aslam (27:42):
AMCA certification. So AMCA is an independent third party organization, Air Movement and Control Association, and they certify any air moving products. So Air Curtain being an air moving product, they certify the performance of that product. So when we manufacture or develop new products, we say our airflow is whatever, let's say 5,000 CFM coming out of this air curtain. Great. It goes to a third party organization, which is AMCA. AMCA certifies their airflow. Yes, whatever is manufactured and published in this manual is accurate and 100% true. Why it's important is because you're buying a product that has a verified performance. It's like buying a car that has your safety is certified by NHTA or NHTSA or whatever, National Highway. Or
Cullen Luning (28:30):
Buying a car that's with JD Power.
Sami Aslam (28:32):
Exactly. Exactly. So that's exactly what it is. It relieves, it frees your mind that is this product correct? Is the performance data published in this manual accurate or not? Can I trust it?
Cullen Luning (28:46):
And that's third party tested at the end of the day. Because everybody can create all these different bold marketing advertising that they've done studies in-house. But once you send that off to a third-party tested, that's what you're looking for. There's so much data driven behind that. And that's what I would want out of a product within my own facility or any everyday use product that I'm using out there.
Sami Aslam (29:08):
And to add onto that, again, AMCA just doesn't just put out, yeah, this air curtain is 5,000 CFM. They look at your power consumption. They verify your uniformity. They verify the projection of the airflow, like how far the air is going from your diffuser down to your ground. What is it by the time it reaches to the ground? And it goes back to my point in the first few minutes we started 400 to 800 feet per minute. So AMCA looks at that, a combination of all factors and then verifies it and then publishes the AMCA seal. So as long as you have the yellow and blue air performance or sound and air performance, they also do sound, by the way. So that's a big one. You have that seal, that's the go ahead.
Mike Smith (29:47):
We will put some resources in the show notes about that AMCA study. I think that'll be helpful for people maybe in justifying cost. Maybe your answer that you just gave plays into one of our last questions, which is a Hopefully we're going to bust a myth here. The common sense person like me, I've even thought this. I'm like, all right, I'm losing energy at an open door in my facility because I have the door open. I put an air curtain on that open door and I give it power and I ask it to run all year long. Isn't that just an equal trade-off? Why put the air curtain up and save the money? Why not just leave the door open and not put the air curtain up? Does the cost to power the unit offset or far outweigh what I would just lose in energy loss?
Sami Aslam (30:36):
No way close to be equal. Let's say you have a dock door that's 96 inches wide. A typical air curtain would have two motors in it to cover the width of the door. And at about, I don't know, at 480 volts, they will consume about three, four amps. That's nothing compared to the amount of conditioned air you are going to lose every time the door is open and there is no air curtain up there.
Cullen Luning (31:02):
Yeah, at 480 3-phase, using an air curtain that's consuming three to four amps, that's having three hair dryers that are going running at like 15 amps.
Mike Smith (31:11):
All of us with daughters understand what you're saying right now. All right, so I think we've established what the problem we have in a facility is, right? It's open doors, it's human behavior, and oftentimes we can't get around it, got to have them open. We've talked about some applications besides the dock doors, or any exterior opening where you would want to see air curtains. We've established that there is a really fast, oftentimes, ROI on people that make the investment. And we've even talked about some practical ways to seek out that ROI, measure it, and get rebates with our power company. We've talked through all these issues. The last thing I want to talk through is we got to clock out, so to speak. And Monday morning when our listeners clock in and they step out at their loading dock or anywhere where there's an open door, what can they do to assess whether they need air curtains or not?
(32:10):
And then secondly, what's the next step they take? What should they do? If they look at their operation, take the advice you're about to give, how do they start acting on it? How do they start justifying it? How do they start building a case to hopefully get some air curtains implemented in their facility?
Cullen Luning (32:26):
So I think the first thing that they're just going to have to look at within their facility is what we're doing in the operation. Well, you can call it storage. Do I not have an air curtain attached to my high speed door that's going three feet per second? Do I have ice buildup around there? Do I have any type of condensation? Summer's a perfect time for that right now where you can see a lot of sweating doors, sweating slabs in that space. And when you're seeing that infiltration, that's a perfect time, that sweating slab, stopping it at the door. So you go into your facility in that morning when you're clocking in, you're seeing a lot of humidity build up or any of that sort. That's a perfect thing to say, maybe I need to start looking into a seal or something that's going to stop from infiltration getting into my building, because that's going to create a lot more problems in that space, not just for your HVAC system, but the rest of your operation in that case.
Mike Smith (33:14):
I've seen naysayers out there. They're like, "Man, this ain't really going to work." I've seen people take the advice you just gave and they're like, "Yeah, I got a freezer door that's going into an ambient space, or I've got a freezer door that goes into a chilled space. You know what? I'll try an air curtain out." And they almost try it out with that tone like, "I'm probably going to find that it's not effective."
Cullen Luning (33:35):
They don't want it to be effective, right? I know. It's the doubt because it's really hard to change doubt in people's body. But what do they typically find? And what do they find? And that's one of the number one ways to do it, whether any type of heated air curtain, vertical, horizontal, it doesn't matter when in that space, having theirs 10 times better than what they're not having it there.
Mike Smith (33:52):
That's been my experience. Anytime we've had a customer go through that little test, you're right. They're almost like, "I'm going to show you, it's not going to work." And it does. And then they end up getting three, four, five, six more because it's so effective.
Sami Aslam (34:04):
And honestly, the very first step is they need to assess, do they really want to fix those issues or not? I think that's the question number one. And question two is, there's always a thousand different reasons not to install one. It's loud, it's this, it's that. But an air curtain when properly selected for its mounting height, properly commissioned, it's not causing any nuisance. I can assure you, if it's the right air curtains, let's say that your mounting height is 10 feet and you extall an air curtain that's rated for 14. Yeah, it will be loud because there's more airflow. It's rated for 14 feet. You need to ensure that it is the right product for the right door height commissioned correctly. That's very important. Your nozzle need to be directed towards the door, not towards the occupants. There's all different factors that comes into play.
(34:52):
And then yes, it will be effective.
Mike Smith (34:54):
And we'll end on this note. Where can our listeners go and find more information like that AMCA study, other resources, or maybe case studies or things on your site?
Sami Aslam (35:03):
Our website, schwankgroup.com. It has all the products listed, all benefits of AMCA certification with the seal, with all the information out there on our website. But at the same time, we can drop in a link at the bottom of the podcast once it publishes and it will take you directly to the public domain of AMCA website where you can see Schwank listed, our products listed, and at the same time, come to our schwankgroup.com website as well directly to see all this products.
Mike Smith (35:31):
Cool. Well, it was awesome to be with you guys. This is a subject that I'm very passionate about. It was good to interview you, hear from your point of view on this topic. I really hope our listeners consider this. And like I said in the beginning, I think it's an area that's often overlooked and misunderstood. They just worked that HVAC. Man, give it some help.
Cullen Luning (35:52):
You're right. Probably the number one product that's out of sight, out of mind. Yeah,
Sami Aslam (35:56):
Absolutely.
Mike Smith (35:56):
Well, Cullen and Sami, thank you. It was good to be with you.
Cullen Luning (35:59):
Thanks, Mike. Appreciate your time.
Sami Aslam (36:00):
Thank you, Mike. I appreciate it, guys.
Mike Smith (36:04):
Thank you for listening to Clocking In, brought to you by Robert Dietrick Company. If this was helpful to you, share this episode with someone else who could benefit from it. Don't forget to follow the show, and if you want more insights like this via email, go to rd-co.com.