The East Coast manufacturing facility of Imperial Brown® used its new hybrid construction method to economize and efficiently produce two large 59’ walk-in units for a Domino’s Pizza warehouse in Panama. Imperial Brown provides walk-in units and service to Domino locations throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico, but this is the first warehouse design for the pizza giant.
“We built all the wall panels using our soft-nose construction, however to be able to span the 19’ 3” for the ceiling panels without using support, we built all the ceiling panels using our 5½” wood frame construction,” said Kristy Heatley, Regional Sales Manager for Imperial Brown. “We do this to help the customer eliminate any internal support columns or eliminate the need for our panels to be supported by the building structure.” The wood-framed ceiling panels require no roof support, whereas soft-nose ceiling panels would require support for a walk-in of this size.
Imperial Brown is unique in the industry in producing walk-in units using this type of hybrid construction. This method combines soft nose, or low-density urethane (LDU) panels, with hard-nosed wood-framed (WFU), or high-density urethane framed (HDU) panels. With the Imperial Brown hybrid method, designers can apply the construction method that best fits the application for the most well-built, cost-effective unit. The customer also realized cost savings with the East Coast shipment to Panama, since Imperial Brown manufacturing facilities are now located on both sides of the U.S.
The two units are a separate cooler and freezer. Each is 59’6” long, 9’5” high and 19’3” wide. Each unit has a 72”x96” manual sliding door, locked to the walk-in panels. Imperial Brown also supplied the cooler with two 3 hp refrigeration systems and the freezer with three 6 hp refrigeration systems. “In using this size and quantity of refrigeration, we are not only maintaining the holding temp, we are also offering the customer a form of redundancy which is recommended for units this size,” says Heatley.
