Loading Dock Fans

Loading docks pose many problems and hazardous issues, two of these problems for warehouse supervisors: How to purge the trailers' potentially hot and or rank air in as little time as possible? How to keep loading dock workers cooler, safe and comfortable. Both can be solved with the right type of ventilation fan(s) in place.

Avoiding Product Taint & Spoilage

Trailers can get hot and odorous. That can affect the products that already exist inside the trailer, or those you are putting inside. (And it’s not much fun for the fork driver either!) The right kind of air movement product efficiently purges the air. and helps displace that hot, humid and potentially fowl air quickly, creating a better environment and helping enable quick loading and departure.

Creating A Better Healthier Workplace

Fumes and extreme temperature changes can make loading docks unpleasant places to work. Fork trucks put out fumes that you don’t want building up, and trucks of course emit diesel fumes and exhaust. These can fill the well outside the dock and slowly find their way inside the building or facility. Once there, your loading dock workers are exposed to a range of hazards atmospheric elements.

Opening those dock doors in wintertime lets the much needed heated air out, while allowing the unwanted cold air in. Workers scramble for warm gear, and so loading or unloading of trucks as well as the dock can be considerably delayed. Likewise, in summer months, your costly desired cooled air rushes out, to be replaced by the hot, humid, sticky air . Your A/C works harder costing you more, while your employees complain about the heat.

Fan and Blower Types

We sell four types of fan for loading docks. These are high velocity fans, workstation fans, portable blower fans and heaters. Here’s more detail.

High Velocity Fans

These axial designed fans are good for moving large volumes of air in a short period of time. An outer tube housing helps streamline airflow in a laser like fashion over as much distance as 75', making them extremely effective for trailer air purging. Industrial Fans Direct offers a variety of sizes these air movement fans, and are available up to 55,000 CFM.

Workstation Fans

These smaller fans help keep the work area(s) fume free and provide local cooling for workers on hot days. Models are available with yoke mounts, stands or brackets and arms for wall, post, ceiling or bench mounting. With their axial designed blades these fans are fairly quiet and move air efficiently. These come in blade sizes up to 24” diameter, and will provide up to 7,500 CFM of cooling, fume removing power.

Portable Blower Fans

We offer a very wide range of sizes and CFM's in these portable drum or barrel type fans. One common loading dock application is for trailer purging where the fan is moved into position only while needed. Worker cooling is also easily accomplished with these powerful air movement products.

Portable blower fans can be either direct drive or belt drive in design. We carry blade sizes from 24" to 60", and up to 30,000 CFM. Explosion-proof models are available for use in hazardous environments where there is a potential for fumes, gases or dust igniting.

Heaters

When the loading dock doors are opened in freezing weather you need a rapid blast of hot air to keep conditions bearable. We sell a range of heaters, electrically, LPG and kerosene-powered, for space heating. These are designed for portability with larger models coming on wheeled frames. Models are available with outputs of up to 215,000 BTUs.

Improve loading dock operations with better ventilation

Loading docks present a number of ventilation challenges. The right fans can minimize trailer purging time, reduce the load on facility HVAC systems, and create better working conditions for employees.

We carry a wide variety of fans suitable for these applications. With so many options available, selecting the right one or ones can be difficult. For help, call the experts at Industrial Fans Direct: 866 727 1060.