Floor Options for Your Walk-in Unit

Walk-in Cooler Floor Options

Walk-in coolers are used for many purposes, from holding fresh ingredients in cafes and restaurants to storing heavy beer kegs in bars and breweries; choosing the right walk-in cooler floor will help you avoid some common pitfalls. It's important to ensure your walk-in unit is sized and installed correctly, but another critical factor that can be easy to overlook is the type of floor your walk-in unit ships with, if it comes with one at all. Here, we'll help you understand if you need a walk-in floor and explain the most common options to help you choose the best one.

Table of Contents

Freezer or Cooler?

If you're in the market for a walk-in freezer, an insulated walk-in freezer floor material with an R-value of at least 28 (R-28) is required under the federal Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA).1 Having an insulated floor not only saves on energy costs but also keeps perishables at their optimal storage temperatures. The energy savings alone can help recover the cost of the insulated floor.

Do You Need a Walk-in Cooler Floor?

Depending on how you use your walk-in cooler and where it's installed, you may not need a floor at all. If your walk-in refrigerator is installed on a concrete floor that contacts the ground, and if it's only accessed by foot traffic, then you likely can get by without a walk-in floor. Coolers installed on wood floors and floors that aren't on grade require their own floor because the condensation they produce can damage the materials underneath. If you use carts or pallet jacks in your walk-in unit or if you store heavy items such as beer kegs, then you'll definitely need a floor. Walk-in freezers always require a floor, no matter how it's being used.

However, an insulated floor makes the walk-in unit more energy efficient. For this reason, prefabricated, insulated walk-in cooler flooring should be used. In the case of new construction, thermal breaks and slab insulation can be installed when pouring the concrete floor. This keeps condensation from forming within and on top of the concrete.

Please be aware that models without floors require sealers, often called screeds, that join the walls of the equipment to the existing floor underneath to keep air and moisture from passing through.

Where Will the Walk-in Cooler Be Located?

Whether or not you'll need an insulated floor for your walk-in cooler depends on where the unit will be placed. For coolers located indoors on bare concrete slabs or on concrete floors finished in vinyl or tile, a floor isn't essential because concrete can withstand the stress of heavy loads and provide adequate, although not optimal, protection from outside heat. However, flooring does provide better insulation. In the case of new construction, thermal breaks and slab insulation can be installed when pouring the concrete floor. This keeps condensation from forming within and on top of concrete.

For a walk-in cooler that's placed above-grade, such as over a basement, crawl space, or on a second story, an insulated floor is required. The walk-in refrigerator floor prevents warmer air underneath the cooler from forming condensation that can, over time, damage the flooring beneath the walk-in unit and compromise your building's structural integrity.

If you plan to place a walk-in unit in an uninsulated warehouse, garage, or outdoors on a non-insulated slab, a reinforced, insulated walk-in cooler floor is essential to prevent condensation from forming. When the ground underneath an uninsulated walk-in cooler or freezer is warmer than the air inside it, the refrigeration system pulls heat out of the flooring and condensation forms on the floor's surface. This heat transfer not only makes the compressor work harder to cool the walk-in unit, but it also causes the floor to sweat, making it slick and dangerous to walk on for staff.

According to the National Floor Safety Institute,2 falls cause the highest number of employee injuries out of all workplace accidents, with wet floors responsible for 10 percent of those occurrences. In addition to causing a slip hazard, slippery floors make it difficult to maneuver racks, carts, and pallet jacks safely through the walk-in unit. Moisture also can condense on perishables and shorten their shelf lives.

In addition to shielding your equipment from outside heat, an insulated walk-in cooler or walk-in freezer floor can save on the electricity required to run your walk-in unit.

How Will Perishables Be Accessed & Transported?

Your walk-in unit's flooring determines how products can be transported in and out of the cooler, beginning with how it interfaces with the floor outside the cooler:

  • Many operators choose to install their walk-in floor directly on an existing floor. That requires the simplest installation but does create a step-up that can limit access to the walk-in unit to foot traffic only.

  • Exterior ramps are designed to handle hand cart, rolling rack, pallet jack, and heavy foot traffic. This type of ramp begins its ascent into the walk-in unit outside the entrance. While this type of access can withstand any amount of traffic, it can create an obstacle in thoroughfares and walkways, so verify the location of your walk-in unit is suitable for this kind of solution.

  • Occupying no space outside the walk-in unit, interior ramps begin their ascent into the walk-in at the door. This type is designed only to withstand light cart and foot traffic but is the best solution for walk-in coolers installed without much walkway clearance outside.

  • Recessed walk-in cooler flooring can be installed flush with the floor outside the walk-in. The equipment installer or a contractor will need to determine whether the existing floor can be adapted for this type of installation.

How Much Weight & Traffic Will the Floor Need to Support?

It's important to think about what will be stored in your walk-in unit before you decide on a floor. Will it be lightweight perishables, such as bags of produce, or heavy, stationary kegs of beer? Will your inventory be transported by hand, with a hand cart, rolling rack, or by a pallet jack? These are all critical questions to answer because a range of different reinforced floors are available to support everything from light foot traffic to heavy keg storage.

Many manufacturers offer insulated, reinforced floors with a layer of plywood to support mobile loads as heavy as 1,000 pounds per square foot. If you add steel reinforcement into the insulation, some floors can support stationary loads as heavy as 5,000 pounds per square foot.

To make it safer to access your walk-in unit, flooring is available with a number of different surfaces. Diamond tread plates create a nonskid surface both inside the unit and on access ramps. These protect employees from slipping in case there are spills or water on the floor. Rubber surfaces are also available that have the same benefits, and both types are available to cover the entire floor or to be placed down the walkway of the cooler only.

Walk-in Floor Materials

Manufacturers typically provide several flooring options when you specify a custom-built, walk-in refrigerator. Choosing the right one for your operation will depend on how you'll use the equipment, which comes down to what you'll store in it and how it'll be accessed. We'll go over the three most common types and discuss the benefits of each.

Foot Traffic

The standard floors supplied in a walk-in refrigerator are made with more or less the same materials as the equipment's walls, which are typically aluminum panels with a few inches of foamed-in-place insulation between. These basic floors can handle loads of 500 to 800 pounds per square foot, meaning they're only strong enough to support foot traffic.

Rolling Traffic – Hand Carts & Pan Racks

If you intend to bring light rolling traffic such as hand carts and pan racks in and out of your walk-in cooler, you'll need a floor with a plywood underlay that'll support around 1,000 pounds per square foot. These floors can support four-wheeled utility carts, pan racks, and hand carts filled with evenly distributed loads.

Heavy Stationary Loads & Manual Pallet Jacks

Heavy-duty, walk-in floors are built with plywood underlays and metal grid or tubular supports placed throughout the foam insulation. These reinforced floors can typically support mobile loads as heavy as 5,000 pounds per square foot, making them suitable for heavily loaded hand carts and manually operated pallet jacks. For stationary loads, the limit is even higher, making this type of floor suitable for holding heavy beer kegs and similarly dense items.

Additional Walk-in Floor Options

In addition to the choice between the three types of walk-in refrigerator and walk-in freezer flooring discussed above, manufacturers often offer extra options for customizing their walk-in floors.

  • Optional finishes: Some manufacturers can customize their walk-in floors with a number of finishes beyond the standard smooth aluminum. This may include diamond-tread plate to supply additional traction and galvanized stainless steel to give the floor superior resistance to damage.
  • Overlays: An overlay can be an economical way to increase the strength and durability of your existing walk-in floor. These are often available in the same finishes as the floors themselves and are used to increase the maximum weights the floors can support. Keep in mind that walk-ins with overlay floors are usually not NSF listed for holding open food; they can be used to hold food in its original, unopened package only. That's because the overlays are typically secured to the floors with screws, creating openings that are unsealed.
  • Matching ramps: If your walk-in refrigerator must be accessed by a ramp, you'll likely want the ramp to match the finish and load capacity of the floor inside the walk-in. Be sure to specify these ramp characteristics when you place your order for a walk-in or floor.

Resources

  1. Energy Independence and Security Act. EPA. Accessed June 2021.
  2. NFSI Quick Facts. National Floor Safety Institute. Accessed June 2021.