Cold Storage Design and Consulting in Vietnam

Cold storage design consulting is the calculation and documentation step that comes before construction: the cooling load, the choice of refrigerant and equipment, the room layout, and the investment cost estimate. This step decides most of the running cost over the following 10–15 years — a mistake made in design cannot be fixed on site. Tan Long provides design consultancy for processing plants, storage cold rooms and distribution centres, including cases where the investor has not yet selected an installation contractor.

What cold storage design covers

Content	Work	Deliverable
Existing conditions survey	Measuring the site, checking the structure, the power supply and the goods access routes	Survey report
Cooling load calculation	Calculating the total heat load from throughput, temperature and operating conditions	Cooling load calculation sheet
Refrigerant and equipment selection	Comparing refrigerant options, selecting compressors, air coolers and condensers	Equipment schedule with specifications
Layout planning	Dividing the rooms, calculating pallet positions, setting out aisles and the loading area	Layout drawings
Schematic design	Refrigeration schematic, pipework, valves and controls	Schematic drawings and technical description
Cost estimate	Itemised take-off of equipment and labour	Cost estimate broken down by item

Cooling load calculation — the step that decides the whole cost

The cooling load is the total amount of heat the system has to remove from the room per unit of time. Underestimate it and the room will not reach its design temperature in peak season; overestimate it and the investor pays for capacity that is never used while the compressors cycle on and off, shortening their life. The cooling load has four main components:

Transmission load through the envelope: heat passing through the wall, ceiling and floor panels — a function of insulation thickness and the inside-to-outside temperature difference.
Product load: the heat that has to be removed to bring each day's incoming goods down to temperature. In a freezing room this is usually the largest component.
Ventilation and door-opening load: warm humid air entering every time a door opens. In a store with constant in-and-out movement this component is very high.
Internal load: heat from lighting, evaporator fans, forklifts and the people working inside the room.

The most common error is to size the capacity per cubic metre of room and ignore the daily intake volume. Two rooms of the same volume, one taking in 5 tonnes a day and the other 30 tonnes a day, have very different cooling loads.

Choosing the refrigerant at the design stage

Medium	Suited to	What to weigh up
NH3 (amoniac)	Large plants running continuously, with a dedicated operations team	High energy efficiency, low refrigerant cost; requires safety procedures and trained operators
Freon	Small and medium stores needing fast installation	Simpler to install and to operate; higher refrigerant cost when topping up
Glycol chilled water	Processing lines needing indirect cooling at many points of use	Keeps the refrigerant out of the production area; adds pumps and losses across the heat exchanger

The refrigerant decision belongs in the design stage, not in the procurement stage. Changing refrigerant after the pipework and compressors are installed means rebuilding most of the system. Tan Long calculates the cooling load first and only then proposes a refrigerant, together with a comparison of the capital cost and the expected electricity cost of each option.

Layout and storage capacity

The usable capacity of a cold store is lower than its geometric volume, because forklift aisles, clearance to the air coolers and gaps to the walls and ceiling for air circulation all have to be deducted. Four parameters should be fixed early in the layout design:

Usable height: sets the number of rack levels and directly drives the pallet capacity.
Racking type: selective, drive-in or mobile racking — each gives a different storage density and picking speed.
Number of rooms and temperature bands: splitting rooms by temperature saves electricity but increases the cost of the envelope.
Loading dock buffer area: a buffer area sharply reduces the door-opening load, especially in a store handling several movements a day.

The four most expensive design mistakes

Skipping sub-floor frost protection in a deep-freeze room. The floor heaves after a few seasons and has to be broken out and rebuilt.
Sizing capacity by volume instead of by throughput. The room fails to hold temperature exactly when peak season arrives.
Ignoring door-opening load in a store with constant movement. The system runs permanently overloaded, electricity consumption rises and the compressors degrade quickly.
Designing with no maintenance access. Replacing an air cooler or a compressor then means dismantling structure.

What Tan Long hands over at the end of the design stage

At the end of the design consultancy the investor receives a complete document set, ready either to go out to tender or to build from: the cooling load calculation, the equipment schedule with specifications, layout drawings and schematic diagrams, the technical description, and an itemised cost estimate. The set works with any contractor — it does not oblige the investor to build with Tan Long.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Tan Long provide design consultancy on its own, without installation?

Yes. An investor can commission the design consultancy on its own and use the documents to go out to tender. The deliverables are the cooling load calculation, the equipment schedule, drawings and cost estimate, with no obligation to build with Tan Long.

What information does Tan Long need to start the design?

Four groups as a minimum: the type of goods and the required storage temperature, the daily intake volume, the area and height of the existing site, and the electrical supply capacity at the plant. The clearer this input, the closer the estimate will be to reality.

What is the difference between cold storage design and refrigeration system design?

Cold storage design covers the envelope, the floor, the doors and the layout. Refrigeration system design covers only the machinery: compressors, air coolers, condensers, pipework and controls. A complete cold store needs both parts to match on specification.

Can an old cold store be refurbished instead of rebuilt?

Yes, if the structure and the floor are still sound. Tan Long surveys the existing conditions first, assesses what can be reused and what has to be replaced, then compares the refurbishment cost against the cost of building new so the investor decides on numbers.

How long does the design consultancy stage take?

It depends on the size of the store and on how complete the input information is. Tan Long fixes a specific date right after the survey, because the timing of this stage feeds directly into the investor's tender schedule.

Request a survey and design consultancy

Tan Long carries out site surveys and cold storage design consultancy throughout Vietnam. Call 0933 357 058 (Mr. Thinh) or send a consultancy request with your throughput and required temperature.