Any need for door alarms in supermarkets?

[Modularm]

Have any of you found a need for door ajar alarms in supermarket applications. We've found that it seems most stores have "close door now" signs on their walk-ins that are being ignored, leading to massive energy waste. Anybody seeing similar things?

[frank]

I see a link between this question and the user name

Modularm - as in module alarm?

Strike me down if I'm halucinating

[Latte]

YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Touble is with supermarkets, the larger they are the worse they get. People loading/unloading them see to think you can leave the door open all day and it will remain at a constant temp hence all the big supermarkets will have door alarms wired into the main fridge alarm panel. It doesnt matter how many stickers you put on the door telling them to close the door or show how much extra electricity it uses they STILL leave the thing open.

However, it not all doom and gloom. If the door open switch is on some kind of recorder at least you can prove thats the reason the unit is high temp and not get the usual "the doors been closed all night" excuse from staff when you get called out to it on high temp but strangley when you get there its back down to temp on its own


Regards

Fatboy

[Modularm]

YES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Touble is with supermarkets, the larger they are the worse they get. People loading/unloading them see to think you can leave the door open all day and it will remain at a constant temp hence all the big supermarkets will have door alarms wired into the main fridge alarm panel. It doesnt matter how many stickers you put on the door telling them to close the door or show how much extra electricity it uses they STILL leave the thing open.

However, it not all doom and gloom. If the door open switch is on some kind of recorder at least you can prove thats the reason the unit is high temp and not get the usual "the doors been closed all night" excuse from staff when you get called out to it on high temp but strangley when you get there its back down to temp on its own


Regards

Fatboy

Fatboy,

Have you experimented with any type of door alarms? My guess is that these people are not going to want to deal with a blaring sound in their ears the whole time and will probably make sure those doors get shut if you had one.

[taz24]

will probably make sure those doors get shut if you had one.

The trouble with supermarkets is the staff.
If you develop something that improves the coldroom but Inconveniences them they will break it, jam it, bend it, tape it or frig it.
If you put somthing in that slows them down then it will get altered so it does not inconvenience them.
The solution is door sensors that link to the alarm / control panel so the door opening times can be logged.
Do not be suprised to find the door switches jamed so they do not activate.
If that fails they will damage the door so that it does not close properly or at all.

taz.

[coolhibby1875]

hi there i was commissinig a coldstore in a supermarket in edinburgh last summer when a store member walked up to the room opened the sliding door then walked away when he did not return i found him and asked why he did this he replied that he thought the door should always be opened as he had worked there 6 months and never seen the door closed i wonder if he tries too cook a chicken in the oven with the door open i think not

[momo]

You'll probably find alarms as difficult to sell as a wind curtain sitting in my stock now for six months, because
the cost is too HIGH !

Along with "burger flippers" supermarket shelf stockers et al. are low paid... and because of their low self-esteem (school failures...), they could not care less that every kWh they waste has to be deducted from somewhere (NOT profit) hence their wages are so low .

No further comment.

P.S. Oh yes, what happened to the "National Army Service" ?

[s/market guru]

waste of time staff could not care less

[Actinide]

Yeah I agree with Taz24 about the staff...

The majority at our work with Supermarket callouts are door alarms, or the bloody staff keep de-railing the coolroom doors....

Its like the staff have a phobia about working in a coolroom with the door closed?? Countless times we have proved to the managers via: computer recording temp graphs, that the door gets left opened when 80% of the time it is not neccesary, But its a ongoing saga...

In Aus, Emerson Technologies are testing a new system called "Product Temperature Simulator" where as there is a temperature sensor submerged into a glycol solution to reinact the thermal storage temperature of a product in a freezer room...

Stupidly enough they mount this system near the door in the freezer room, Duh!

Anyone else heard of this?

[nike123]

I think that video surveillance and wage reduction according to the behavior of worker, could do much better job than alarm.

[taz24]

In Aus, Emerson Technologies are testing a new system called "Product Temperature Simulator" where as there is a temperature sensor submerged into a glycol solution to reinact the thermal storage temperature of a product in a freezer room...

Stupidly enough they mount this system near the door in the freezer room, Duh!

Anyone else heard of this?

In the UK Marks & Spencer put them in all their fridges and freezers way back in the early nineties.
We called them plastic chickens (they were supposed to simmulate chicken).
Horrible things

Cheers taz.

[Pooh]

Door alarms are great things but you have to be sneaky as Taz says, I developed a system that used magnetic switches connected to a timer which if the door was left open for more than a preset time turned on a siren and strobe light it also interupted the temp logging probe circuit showing a probe open circuit alarm on the monitoring panel so that it was possible to log the siren activations.
The system was very good and solved problems in certain stores I looked after.

Ian
PS. the trick to success is to make the switch not look like a switch then they cant frigg it.

[chillin out]

In the UK Marks & Spencer put them in all their fridges and freezers way back in the early nineties.
We called them plastic chickens (they were supposed to simmulate chicken).
Horrible things

Cheers taz.

A lot of Iceland stores use these as well.

Chillin

[750 Valve]

.

In Aus, Emerson Technologies are testing a new system called "Product Temperature Simulator" where as there is a temperature sensor submerged into a glycol solution to reinact the thermal storage temperature of a product in a freezer room...

Stupidly enough they mount this system near the door in the freezer room, Duh!

Anyone else heard of this?

Those sims are placed near the door as food is often stored in that area as well, and its proved to be the warmest stock in the room with all the door openings. Coles have actually had them in all case subsystems and one in each meat case for about 5 years now - they also put one in the meat room and alarm it at 4C for 15 mins and -1.5C for 40 mins, they also fit a door alarm to the meat room set to alarm if open for 20 mins straight.

The sims are a far cry from the old chooks but, they are a normal probe stuffed in an insulated box the size of a cigarette packet

Door switches though are a wonderful thing - I would rather not have them alarm out - only log on the controller, they are an invaluable service tool to find out why the temp alarm came in, especially for young inexperienced mechanics... we have a few that think that if they can't find an immediate cause then the alarms must be caused by txv's being set wrong - the proceed to stuff a correctly set valve everytime

[willie]

have a small chain of independants here who alarms all c/room doors thru main security system so that when they close at and set there alarm system all c/room doors have to be closed to get security seal ,can also be programed as a local alarm during trading hours so doors will be kept closed

[750 Valve]

have a small chain of independants here who alarms all c/room doors thru main security system so that when they close at and set there alarm system all c/room doors have to be closed to get security seal ,can also be programed as a local alarm during trading hours so doors will be kept closed

thats a great idea for those non 24hrs stores - saves the mgr getting the inevitable one in the night, but also keeps the local guy from getting his bread and butter callouts