Welcome to Did You Know, the ESCO HVAC podcast,
the show where we explore the cool, the hot,
and the everything in between of the HVACR industry.
Each week, we dig into the innovations, the insights,
and the inspiring stories that power our trade,
from the classroom to the job site and beyond.
This episode is brought to you by this week's
amazing sponsors. Daikin Comfort Technology,
perfecting the air since 1924. ServiceLogic,
people first. Always. Hudson Technologies. One
pound reclaimed is one pound not made. iConnect
Training. Supporting HVAC and refrigeration instructors.
As well as the United Association of Journeymen
and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting
Industry of the United States and Canada. Built
on excellence since 1889. Whether you're just
getting started or you've been turning wrenches
for decades like myself, there's always something
new for us to learn. I'm Clifton Beck, and this
is Did You Know? The ESCO HVAC Podcast. Let's
dive in. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining
us once again on Did You Know? The ESCO HVAC
Podcast. We spend a lot of time talking about
energy efficiency, ways that we can improve efficiency
of buildings, and especially equipment. We're
seeing a lot of changes in technology, a lot
of innovations. And so today we're spending some
time with Curtis Russell from Mars Air Systems.
Curtis, how's it going? Good, good. Yeah, thank
you for having me on. Excited to be here. Absolutely.
I spent a lot of time in the refrigeration, especially
commercial refrigeration sector, seeing air curtains
in a variety of installations and applications.
But as we started seeing those grocery stores
evolve, I spent a lot of time on new construction.
So I worked as a mobile engineer for a large
grocery store chain here in the Midwest. And
I had some of the older stores that I would manage.
But a lot of times when we'd open up a new store,
I'd go in for the startup commissioning, stay
there. first year and one of the things that
that we would see a lot of especially in in newer
constructions is air curtains being used in a
lot of different applications and i don't think
everyone is aware of the opportunities that are
in the air curtain design and replacement and
how they can affect building efficiencies so
let's let's kind of educate an industry on air
curtain applications Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And yeah, and we'll kind of talk about efficiencies
too. I think that's a really good point there.
But yeah, I mean, I really think, you know, the
problem with air curtains, first and foremost,
I guess just to give everyone kind of a basic
understanding of what we're doing, right, with
air curtains, we're really just using, it's a
unit that's creating a controlled stream of air
to separate two environments, pretty much at
a basic level there, right? And, you know, i
think the problem with air curtains is because
we're moving air a lot of times it's it's it's
tough for people to conceptualize what's going
on yeah um you could you could kind of think
about it as um the analogy i like to use is like
the sleeve on a coffee cup right so you get that
starbucks coffee you get the sleeve on it right
and obviously that sleeve is preventing your
your hand from burning well well why is that
right it's really the space or the air between
the outside of that sleeve and the outside of
the cup. That's really what's preventing your
hand from getting burned there is that air in
between. And really, you know, it's a little
bit different because we're moving air, but the
science behind it and the concept is pretty much
the same. So, you know, various benefits there.
I think they're most commonly known as a fly
fan, but there's just so many other applications.
Hopefully, you know, I can... give everyone some
kind of awareness of that today. More on the
temperature side of things, you know, environmental
separation, right? Using them in cold storage
applications. Clifton, I know you said yourself,
you do a lot of cold storage refrigeration. So
I think that's a very common application. We
can get into the humidity side of things as well
with that. You know, I know that's a big issue
in cold storage as well. And then in addition
to just, you know, keeping our buildings clean
preventing the quote -unquote bad stuff from
getting in the buildings right keeping the good
stuff in so that's kind of the general idea of
what we're trying to do here yeah i've seen some
very interesting designs in air curtain construction
along the way one primary one we had we had a
a large um it was all cold storage so you had
a walk -in cooler very large walk -in cooler
actually drive -in cooler that they ran fork
trucks through but then right next to it was
act the actual meat prepping area right all the
meat cutting for the store and it had an air
curtain between the two of them and they kept
about a 15 degree differential between those
two spaces you know you didn't want 40 degree
in your meat cutting room but you know 50 55
was you know comfortable for somebody to work
in and you could literally like walking through
the air curtain you had a 15 degree difference
within you know a six inch space and people always
thought that was very interesting how you can
walk through and you know like we for fun sometimes
you stand there and like stick one hand through
the air curtain yeah yeah yeah i think everyone
kind of has their uh we call it like the aha
moment right and like i said because it's one
of the difficult things with air curtains is
because you can't see it working right that really
like that touch that feel element of it is so
important i encourage anyone who's you know either
if they're around job sites with their curtains
or have installed one Doing exactly what you
said, right, just standing in front of it and
really just feeling that temperature difference,
I think is the best way to really understand
like, oh, wow, this air, you know, it's actually
providing this this barrier, this protection
between the two spaces. So especially in cold
storage as well. Right. The bigger the rule of
thumb I like to say, too, is that the bigger
temperature difference that you could have, the
bigger problem you could potentially have as
well. And it's going to make. And keeping that
conditioned air in that meat processing room,
like you were saying, or in that cold storage
or cooler room or freezer room, that much more
important. It's interesting. Really, it's more
like an air wall than an air curtain. I mean,
it's very intriguing to be able to experience
those. And I don't think a majority of the people
have, unless you've been in that environment,
you don't witness them a lot. Everyone has felt
an air curtain at some point when you've walked
through, say, you know, like a service door.
You walked into a, you know, any of your big
box shops and all of a sudden you have air blowing
across you for no reason. You're like, what is
that? Why is this here? Mess up your hair. Yeah,
exactly. But, you know, why is that key role
that I think most people don't understand? Yeah.
Yeah. And like I said, too, I mean, just kind
of adding to the benefits, I'll go back to your
example that you just talked about with with,
you know, the meat processing area right next
to that cooler room, a little bit of a temperature
difference there. Great story where there could
be multiple advantages there. Right. So obviously,
you know, in the example you had, it's OK. You
know, you want to keep the meat processing area
at a certain temperature and then that cooler
room at a certain temperature. But you also have,
you know, again, the things you might not think
about. you know what why are why is it so important
to keep those temperatures consistent right and
and that comes down to you know potentially preventing
food spoilage in that in that meat processing
area or the quality of the meat if that room
gets you know too warm you know not only are
you gonna have a problem with Temperature control
and efficiencies, like I said, we can touch on
that too. But just the actual food or whatever
you're really looking to process in that room
can get spoiled as well. And now you're talking
about not only do we have a savings on the utility
bill of running that air conditioning equipment
more, but you're actually saving the food itself
and you're able to get more longevity out of
the product. That's really the most important
element in that case. And then, you know, another
thing could be, you know, like I mentioned earlier,
there could be a humidity element, too. Right.
So if you have certain humidity levels that could
potentially, you know, create issues with the
food or it could be a safety issue, too. Right.
If you have condensation on the floors, that's
a very common problem we have, especially in
cold storage and food applications where, you
know, if you're getting condensation on the floor
or frost buildup on the floor or on the strip
curtains. Right. If you've got strip curtains.
An air curtain can really just be a good way
to prevent that from happening, prevent slipping
issues. We've had issues where forklifts can
run over puddles and crash into walls. Whatever
produce they're carrying falls off the forklift.
Again, just a bunch of supplemental benefits
that can really be thought of in multiple applications.
I hadn't really thought about the humidity aspect
as much, and I should. I mean, that was part
of my job, but I was focused so much on the refrigeration
and the temperature. But now that you mentioned
that, it makes complete sense. Take that same
example. In that meat prepping area, every night
they did a wash down. That was incredibly high
humidity that was being used inside of that area
during that short period of time. And you don't
want that humidity in your actual... refrigerated
section of it so yeah you can do humidity isolation
by using an air curtain in between two different
environments yeah yeah and actually that brings
even more so so like i said the bigger the temperature
delta even bigger issues could happen and a good
story i have with that is we actually had a good
um case study it was out out on the east coast
so across the country for us but um they had
a big issue with um So again, we're talking about
like supplemental benefits of the air curtain,
right? They had a cold storage room and it opened
up to a unconditioned warehouse. Now in those
summer months, right? And that warehouse was
getting really hot and humid. And so they were
having issues with that cold storage room. Now,
obviously temperature control, right? Kind of
being that one of those paramount benefits was
one problem, but they were not as concerned with
that. And really the problem they had was the
the humid air was actually getting in that cooler
room um it was a beer distributor so they had
like you know pallets and boxes of beer of beers
in these cardboard boxes and it was actually
The humidity was condensing and destroying the
boxes that the beer was in. Exactly. To the point
where now you have labor costs. They had to either
throw away product or they had to repackage the
product. And that was the biggest issue that
we were able to help them out with. Aside from,
you know, not just that temperature, it was really
that humidity issue, which I thought, you know,
a really cool example of, you know, getting supplemental
benefits of air curtains there. Yeah, no, that's
intriguing because I. I just never really looked
at it from the humidity perspective before. I
always looked at it from the temperature, but
that's a perfect example of being able to manage
that environment simply by putting an air barrier
in between the two different environments. Right.
Yeah, exactly. So on a common air curtain installation,
what are the common designs? I feel like I've
seen a few different designs, particularly like
in that cold storage application. Yeah, so I
would say, you know, there's a couple different,
and that's what's cool with us. So, you know,
we're always trying to innovate and improve a
product, right? I would say the most common application
you're going to get is a unheated unit. over
like a you know seven to ten foot man door um
whether that's you know obviously it can be a
customer entrance that could be a cold storage
you know walk -in door something like that um
we also do you know we do a lot in in the industrial
market too so um i guess to kind of give you
the the whole spectrum here right we we do a
lot of applications as small as you know couple
foot um drive -through windows and then as large
as you know 30 foot plus big dock delivery doors
um but yeah you know unheated unit blowing the
air is the most common now we also can provide
uh heated units so whether that's it's typically
like electric heat um but you know hot water
steam gas you know depending on kind of what
kind of building you have we do have those options
available um And, you know, that's really to
kind of prevent that windchill effect. So, you
know, if you're somewhere cold, like, you know,
Chicago, for example, that comes to mind because
I just saw the Rams win last night. So, you know,
somewhere Chicago in the winter. Right. It's
going to be not super comfortable if you're walking
through, you know, a door to the outside. It's
zero or below zero outside. And you walk and
you got that air blowing on you. So, you know,
a lot of people think. It's most common or the
heat is to kind of have be like a supplemental
heater for the building. Sometimes that's the
case, but it's typically to kind of prevent that
that wind chill effect for more customer comfort.
And then, you know, I would say, again, the cool
thing with us, like I said, we're always trying
to improve the product. So, you know, some other
applications or installations we're really trying
to expand and grow into are kind of more of these
niche things and really just doing more with
air curtains. So we have what's called a clean
air series. um which is just you know it's a
various units we offer um to really kind of take
air currents to that next level of you know not
only are we using air as an air barrier But we're
actually trying to clean and sanitize the air.
So we can do, you know, UV lights in the units.
We can do HEPA filters, you know, bipolar ionization.
Just kind of, again, especially more for these
hospital, clean room, even cold storage applications
to, you know, prevent mold growth and things
like that. Extend the life of perishables. Again,
just other applications and other technologies
we're using to improve, you know, how air curtains
can be used. Sure. You know, Curtis, one of the
things that I witnessed in the field is that
not all technicians are educated on the repair
and maintenance and sometimes just the building,
the property managers. And sometimes it would
fall into kind of like the same class of like
economizers that are used on rooftops where they're
incredibly beneficial. But if someone doesn't
understand them, what do they do? they bypass
them or just take them out altogether just ruining
all of the energy efficiency opportunities um
do you see that as yeah yeah i do see that a
lot and you know it's it's funny it's one so
we we typically actually you know the majority
of the opportunities we have are actually on
existing buildings um versus design projects,
kind of to your point. And a lot of times, you
know, there's a couple reasons, I think. But
one of the most, the ones that stick out the
most is the fact that, you know, they get taken
off projects, possibly in the design phase, and
then we get the call, you know, six months after
the job is done and they have issues. So, you
know, the air curtains, they end up getting there
to some extent a lot of times, but I think really
kind of relaying the value to the engineer. is
important so maybe i can talk about that a little
bit here um yeah so i you know i think a lot
of times you know like i said they they get value
engineered off projects you know they're a little
over budget and they see an air curtain as they
want versus a need so that could be you know
potentially one of things that get taken off
um when in reality you know i think that there's
a couple things to unpack here right number one
uh especially if you're like in a large office
building type project you know you could have
uh you know a central air handling unit that's,
you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And
first and foremost, air curtains in themselves
are not very expensive. So I think, you know,
you can get a lot more mileage, you know, figuring
out ways to tweak that. larger piece of equipment
to save a lot more money and then in the long
run um you know with the fact that air currents
are able to maintain building temperatures and
prevent fluctuations especially in high traffic
situations you're ultimately going to save a
lot more money uh pretty quickly the rois are
pretty quick when you factor in you know installing
one of our low pro units is the same amount of
power as like running a light bulb you know in
your in your parking lot so That is a lot more
efficient than, you know, having to cycle a large,
you know, a large compressor on and off every
time those building temperatures fluctuate. So
I think it's an important point there as well.
Absolutely. I do as well. I know we're going
to have a lot of technicians and even engineers
on the show or on this podcast listening. When
we think about an air curtain. Most of our airflow
nerds like myself are going to go, okay, we're
supplying air. What are we doing with the return?
How are we making this curtain? Are we pulling
air just from one room and then circling, taking
the temperature, whichever room has the lower
temperature or lower humidity, whatever one we're
trying to condition. Are we just using the air
from one of those spaces that we're trying to
divide? Yeah. So typically, we recommend in a...
Cold storage, well, there's a couple things I
recommend. For cold storage, that one comes to
mind first just because it's the largest temperature
difference. We typically recommend installing
that on the warm side. Okay. Yeah, that's going
to be your best, you know, you're going to get
the best efficiency out of the unit. Now, obviously,
like I said, if you're doing something like you're
trying to put UV lights in it, you're trying
to clean the room, sanitize the air, prevent
mold growth, things like that. you obviously
got to install it on whichever side you're trying
to clean that air in. That could be one case
where you'd have to install it in the cooler.
Freezers, just as a note, we've never really
had a successful install inside a freezer. Those
typically always have to be on the warm side.
But other than that, I would say in typical applications,
it's most common practice to install it on the
inside of the building. So if you're able to
do that, we recommend that. You can, for our
unheated units, you can install them outdoors
as long as it's covered and not exposed directly
to the elements. But just to get the most longevity
out of the unit. And like I said, you really
just want to use that clean air that's on the
inside of the building. to create that barrier
um like i said typically you know installing
the unit on the inside of the door if possible
is probably best practice yeah the only time
that i've i remember seeing one installed outdoors
at a local botanical garden at the zoo you know
they had it at the entry outside and but it was
being used really just to make sure it was blow
off any insects you know that might be traveling
with you but you know it's all part of you know
conditioning that outdoor space before you get
to that indoor space and you know when we think
about that you know it has a lot of benefits
you know if we can separate two areas because
you have a lot of traffic going in and out of
those doors so you can't use you know swinging
doors or rotating doors because of you know safety
scenarios but if you can use an air curtain well
now we can do a isolate those two different atmospheres
and in cases like that you could actually use
them for uh pre -conditioning the person or the
product before they go into the new space right
exactly yeah and we you know we've kind of um
played around with that too that kind of falls
in that clean air series camp a little bit to
where um yeah you know you can actually use these
so you know we've done actually a couple of installations
too where you know you install like two units
let's say on the sides of the doors um vertically
right so they're kind of mounted vertically on
the sides and then when people are walking through
you know it's just another way you can blow whatever
you know um things you want off of them and kind
of keep them cleaner um and not just from a customer
entry or or you know person application we do
a lot of that too like um i guess more in the
industrial sector like with with a lot of like
mining projects we have like with like actual
like mines yeah they'll have um So, you know,
sometimes they'll have like carts, right, that
kind of drive through and things like that. And
depending on what they're mining, they get really
dirty. And they're saying, hey, you know, we
again, another supplemental application here,
right? The kind of the norm is like, hey, you
know, we don't really need the temperature control
or flying insects, but we just really need a
fan with a controlled stream of air that can
really just blow the dirt, dust, whatever off
of these trucks. Right. And make sure we're not
polluting. um you know wherever they're going
or depositing you know whatever product they're
they're mining on so um we we see it you know
like i said a lot of applications like that as
well that's interesting i hadn't thought about
it but it completely makes sense i mean you're
removing some of that dust and particles and
you're just leaving them in the environment that
they came from yeah healthcare too like i said
if you have like a very Just a very controlled,
you know, product or something that you need
cleaned. You just, you know, it's been sitting
in a warehouse and you need to move it to, you
know, another room to unpackage it or whatever.
You know, like I said, we're really just blowing
the air, but there's another benefit there and
just another way you can think about, you know,
how else can I use this other than temperature
control, flying insect control, things like that.
Very intriguing. And that's the kind of things
I want to talk about is, you know, what are the
different applications? Just so people understand
that. there's a variety of applications that
can be used in and sometimes we don't think about
you know what are all of our options when we're
looking at a space and we're trying to condition
a space it's important to understand what all
of the options are in case we just we weren't
uh educated on what some of them would be yeah
i guess a couple other kind of like you know
i guess examples come to mind too kind of in
that right like how else can I use these? So,
you know, one, one I thought was, was really
good was I went to, I'm drawing a blank on, on
the airport now, but I was traveling, you know,
a couple of months ago to the East coast. And
it was funny because I'd never seen this before,
even me, right. As, as a Mars employee, I'd never
seen this, but I was like, wow, that is a great
application. I was waiting at my gate. to board
the plane um and i looked up you know they have
the terminals kind of like the the terminal i
guess to where you board people you know they
walk on in that um terminal and i'm looking you
know at the door behind the the gal at the desk
and i'm seeing an air curtain and it's electric
heated inside yeah right at the gate inside the
airport and what i realized was they're using
it there because you know they don't want when
those doors open it was so cold you bet um yeah
that it was actually that cold air was coming
in through that terminal even though it was kind
of sealed off they still had the cold an issue
with that cold air getting in so they were using
air curtains believe it or not inside the airport
at the gate to prevent that so that was a really
cool application yeah um And I just thought,
you know, like I said, that'd be kind of something
a little bit a little bit unique as well. Yeah,
because that could actually help even on the
pressure differential. You know, if you think
about like the airport, which, you know, I don't
know if they negative pressure or positive pressure,
they probably positive pressure. I can't remember
walking through the doors, but I think those
are slightly positive pressure. You know, and
if you open that to the outside, you know, that's
a large amount of air that could potentially
be coming down that that causeway, that walkway.
versus putting a air curtain in between it and
you could actually dampen that pressure differential.
Yeah, air curtains. Yeah, I would say their pressure
differentials are difficult for air curtains.
Yeah, I can imagine. It is tough. It's a very
common, I guess, just in terms of kind of. misconception
maybe not misconception but just common common
issues we hear of that is probably the largest
one yeah we'll hear people you know we'll get
you know pet calls or whatever and say hey your
air curtain's not working but a lot of times
you know we ask them okay well is is the building
temperature balanced yeah exactly and a lot of
times it's not and unfortunately it's just it
is one of those things i wish i could change
the you know the laws of the universe right but
uh you know unfortunately it is just one of those
things where negative pressure is difficult now
again we can't overcome a little bit um we we've
seen some of that but it is an important thing
i guess for all the listeners as well to note
of you know if you do have a project especially
where you have a lot of air curtains or or a
lot of openings yeah um And really, you know,
I think it is an important thing to make sure
that there is a relatively balanced building.
And it can be something as easy, you know, obviously
numbers are great if you've got the equipment
to do that. But even if something as simple as,
you know, taking like a tissue or a napkin and
you kind of put it at that doorway. And if there's
fluttering, right, you can kind of tell there's
a little bit pressure. So that's the kind of
the way I like to do it just because it's easier.
But, you know, again, it's just giving you that
gauge, you know, so you kind of know what to
expect. the proper way to fix the issue which
like i said in those cases isn't the air curtain
it's actually the the building pressure so exactly
curtis where can we learn more about mars air
systems yeah so i would you know highly recommend
checking out our website first and foremost at
you know marsair .com m -a -r -s -a -i -r .com
ton of great information there um now there's
a there's a lot so you know it'll obviously Can
take you a couple of different ways. We've got
all of our products there. We've got videos there.
If you're a specifier, you know, we have our
specification documents there. If you're really
looking to just get a better understanding of
air curtains in general, we do have a YouTube
channel as well. Mars Air Systems. And that's
both. Yeah, we have videos, you know, really
kind of educating people on. A little bit of
what I talked about, what are air curtains, their
benefits, you know, where can I use them? And
we actually recently came out with some videos
more on the technician side as well. So if you're
someone who services air curtains and you just
kind of want a cleaner video of, you know, hey,
how do I, you know, take out the motor fan assembly?
How do I, you know, service the, you know, how
do I clean it, replace parts, things like that.
We have those on our YouTube page and we're actively
coming out with more of those as well to hopefully.
better help the customer audience we have. Yeah,
absolutely. Well, I really appreciate you hanging
out with us today. Learned a lot more about air
curtains than I had in the past. That's always
a good day and a good conversation. And we thank
you for spending time today. Likewise. I appreciate
you having me on, Clifton. Thanks again. Absolutely.