Solar Whiz Commercial — Steel Manufacturing
Case Studies
Business
Cutting and preparation of steel products
Client’s Needs
This factory in Victoria sports a number of activities and machinery including plasma cutting and welding services.
The company contacted Solar Whiz needing increased ventilation as well as additional fume and heat extraction. The 4 existing commercial-grade whirlybirds that they already had installed on the roof were not meeting their requirements.
Our Solution
We replaced the old existing commercial whirlybirds with 4 of our own SW-AU-C-155 solar commercial exhaust fans. Fortunately, we were able to retrofit our own flashings onto the holes left by the whirlybirds. This meant that we were able to make use of the existing holes in the roof and significantly reduce the installation costs because it wasn’t necessary to replace the sheets where the whirlybirds had been installed.
The solar roof exhaust fans were installed above the large industrial plasma cutter and are well-placed to extract the fumes that it generates.
The solar roof exhaust fan works by extracting the fumes generated by the plasma cutter and replacing them with outdoor air. This replacement air is clean and cool, helping to maintain a healthy and comfortable work environment. The solar roof exhaust fans have also been backed up by a night operations kit so that the units can operate at full capacity (if required) overnight or in overcast conditions. This works by attaching the solar roof exhaust fans to mains power. The solar roof exhaust fans only ever take the energy that they need to top up operations and a maximum of 24 watts can be drawn. This is an incredibly cheap and efficient use of energy to ensure that the solar exhaust fans are operating at their highest performance level.
Results
Because this installation was done in parts we could monitor the difference in performance at each stage. After we installed the first solar roof exhaust fan we were able to determine that a single SW-AU-C-155 solar roof exhaust fan was having more of an impact than all 4 of the original whirlybirds combined. This really shows how powerful and effective our solar-powered exhaust fans are.
The improvement in airflow and fume extraction from the plasma cutter was remarkable. The speed at which air was moved in and out of the building was incredibly impressive and had immediate positive impacts. The indoor environment is much more comfortable and the air quality is significantly better.
