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Cold Storage Load Calculator

Work out cold storage load instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Cold Storage Load Calculator

Cold room load is the sum of product cooling, air infiltration through doors, transmission through the envelope, and internal loads from lights, fans and people, plus a contingency. Product load dominates where daily intake is high; infiltration dominates in high-traffic rooms with frequent door openings.

Formulas

Product load

Q (kJ/day) = mass x specific heat x temperature drop

Total load

Load (kW) = total daily kJ / 86,400

Worked example

With the default values below, Cold Storage Load Calculator returns Total Refrigeration Load of 8.294. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Room Volumeminimum 0 m3
500 m3
Daily Product Intakeminimum 0 tonnes/day
8 tonnes/day
Product Temperature Reductionminimum 0 degrees C
20 degrees C
Air Changes Per Dayminimum 0
4

Results

Total Refrigeration Load
8.294
Product Cooling Load
6.6667
Air Infiltration Load
0.6986
Load In Tons Of Refrigeration
2.358

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Product load
  3. 3Total load
  4. 4Total Refrigeration Load= 8.294
  5. 5Product Cooling Load= 6.6667
  6. 6Air Infiltration Load= 0.6986
  7. 7Load In Tons Of Refrigeration= 2.358

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 4 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is infiltration so significant?

Each door opening exchanges cold dry air for warm humid air, and the latent heat of the moisture must be removed and then defrosted off the coil. Air curtains and fast doors cut this substantially.

What is a ton of refrigeration?

3.517 kW, historically the rate of cooling from melting one short ton of ice in 24 hours. It remains the common commercial unit for chiller capacity.

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