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Facility Managers’ Institute – Taking the Heat Off Customers

How do you attract customers, have them return and refer others when they’re roasting in outdoor summer heat? In venues ranging from bars, cafes, resorts, restaurants and casinos to sports complexes, amusement parks, car dealerships, and, in fact, any overly warm outdoor site including smoking areas, managers are finding that taking the heat off customers and employees is good for business. When shade or typical cooling methods can’t do the job, a growing number of managers are turning to a new high pressure fog misting system that can make summer heat more comfortable, entice customers, extend the business season, and enhance employee productivity.

‘Most sports parks in our area shut down in summer because it gets too hot,” says Phil Currie, Director of Maintenance at Big League dreams sports facility in Gilbert, AZ, where temperatures can reach 120 degrees. ‘But with high pressure misters in our dugouts and audience seating, we’ve been able to drop outside temperatures by up to 30 degrees. Now we draw customers all summer long, and have extended our comfortable playing season by six months.’

Out of air-conditioned indoor settings, the blazing sun can make customers run for shelter and sap worker productivity. While providing shade is a good place to start, there’s no escaping hot, dry summer air in lines, patios, or seating at many outdoor locales. With laws banning indoor smoking, forcing more customers and employees outside in summer heat, facility managers are on the lookout for practical outdoor cooling solutions.

Fans just move hot air, with no actual cooling. Large, loud portable evaporative coolers can cool a narrow area in the direct airstream, but outside this area there’s little cooling. Low pressure misting systems are ineffective at cooling since they wet there target areas with relatively large water droplets that don’t quickly evaporate. Without timely evaporation, cooling is limited since the droplets take overly long to absorb heat energy from the air and change to water vapor.

Instead of traditional methods, Big League Dreams, the premier developer/operator of amateur recreational sports facilities in the country, turned to high pressure fog misting systems to cool baseball dugouts and audience seating for eight fields at its Gilbert, AZ facility where kids and adults play in replicas of big league stadiums such as Boston’s Fenway Park and Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The park also operates a restaurant adjacent to the playing fields that allows fans to take their food out to the stands.

The facility relies on high pressure static line misting. The static line systems mount and align tubes and nozzles to deliver mist. By pressurizing water to up to 1,000 psi and forcing it through specially designed mist system nozzles, billions of tiny water droplets are created, each smaller than a grain of salt. The droplets are so light, they stay suspended in the air; as they absorb heat energy from the air and evaporate, air temperature can fall as much as 30 degrees with no noticeable increase in relative humidity.

‘We first put misting systems in the stands, then in the dugouts because we got so many requests,’ says Currie. ‘The misting provides needed heat relief, allowing players and their families to stay as long as they want. Customers love it, and it’s been great for business. Lots of restaurants around here are catching on to how misting can help,’ adds Currie. ‘When it gets too hot for comfort outside, the misting can make a difference between keeping or losing your customer. It’s a competitive edge.’

When trying to cool large commercial areas, however, traditional methods and even some high pressure misting techniques can be ineffective or inefficient. ‘Evaporative coolers didn’t do our technicians any good unless they stood right in front of the nozzles,’ says frank Canisales, a manager at Infiniti of Scottsdale, the highest consumer-rated Infiniti in America today. Unless cooled, summer heat can be brutal on the dealerships 17 repair technicians. Outdoor temperatures can reach 120 degrees in their Scottsdale, AZ location and the 20,000 square foot repair shop exposed to open air on three sides.

Even high pressure static line systems can be relatively inefficient at cooling larger areas since they lack a focused airstream to deliver mist evenly. Mist may not completely or uniformly evaporate intro the surrounding air. Nozzles which spray a certain distance and direction can create areas of too much wetness under a nozzle, while labor intensive tubing alignment and mounting can increase installation and maintenance costs. A vertical fan system can add an airstream to aid air cooling distribution, but a stationary airstream typically covers just a narrow band 25-degree wide. Like a flashlight beam, this leaves many areas outside its focus. Cooling may be relatively slow to diffuse with pockets of relative heat remaining. Adding fan oscillation can distribute mist over a wider area, but still leaves areas with less cooling while the airflow is pointed elsewhere.

The dealership sought a high-pressure misting system that would efficiently provide needed cooling coverage without wetting the shop floor. At the urging of their master technician, they turned to an integrated climate control system called ‘Revolution’™ by Fogco, which allowed complete cooling of commercial areas up to 10,000 cubic feet without wetness. Infiniti of Scottsdale’s repair shop installed 11 revolution™ misting systems throughout. According to Canisales, he and his technicians couldn’t be happier.

‘We saw a 5.8 percent productivity boost in our busy summer months,’ say Canisales. ‘With the cooler temperatures inside, our technicians were able to work longer, to stay and finish jobs. Before, they were exhausted at the day’s end. It’s been a huge moral boost to our crew. It’ll help us retain valued employees who’ll help us keep customer satisfaction high.’