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Planning guide

Cold Store Facility Sizing Guide — with Worked Examples

How to turn a storage quantity, a temperature requirement and the condition of your existing plant into a first-pass facility scope: room volume, floor area and refrigeration duty. Every example below uses the same method as the Facility Sizing Calculator, so you can reproduce and adjust each one.

The method in four steps

Convert to pallet positions. One tonne of product ≈ 1.3 pallet positions (750 kg per pallet).
Convert to volume. One stored pallet needs roughly 3.2 m³ of gross room volume including aisles and staging — about 0.5 m² of floor at 6 m clear height.
Apply the duty factor. ≈22 W/m³ chilled, ≈32 W/m³ frozen, ≈90 W/m³ blast freezing, plus a 20% design margin.
Adjust for the existing fault. Undersized plant +25%, ageing plant +20%, infiltration or defrost problems +15%, condenser limitations +10%.

Indicative planning figures for scoping and briefing. Equipment selection requires a verified heat-load calculation for your building, climate and product.

Chilled dairy distribution centre

A dairy distributor stores 800 pallets of chilled product at +2 °C with daily rotation. New build, no existing plant.

Volume	Floor area	Base duty	Required duty
2,560 m³~800 pallets	427 m²	56.3 kW	67.6 kW

• Chilled rooms need less duty per m³ than frozen, but door traffic in distribution is high — the 20% design margin covers it.
• Specify fast-roll doors and air curtains at dispatch; infiltration is the biggest load driver in chilled DCs.

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Frozen fish cold store, 1,200 tonnes

A seafood processor holds 1,200 tonnes of frozen fish at −22 °C. The existing plant cannot hold temperature in summer.

Volume	Floor area	Base duty	Required duty
5,120 m³~1,600 pallets	853 m²	163.8 kW	245.8 kW+25% · incl. fault uplift

• 1,200 tonnes ≈ 1,600 pallet positions at 750 kg per pallet.
• The 25% undersized-plant uplift covers the real intake load that the original design missed — replacement capacity must match today's throughput, not the old nameplate.

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Blast freezing for a meat plant

A meat processor needs to blast-freeze 150 pallets per cycle at −38 °C core pull-down.

Volume	Floor area	Base duty	Required duty
480 m³~150 pallets	80 m²	43.2 kW	51.8 kW

• Blast freezing needs roughly 4x the duty per m³ of a frozen store — pull-down time, not storage, drives the sizing.
• Cycle time, product entry temperature and packaging all change the real load; treat this figure as a briefing starting point.

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Pharmaceutical warehouse, GDP-compliant

A pharma distributor stores 300 pallets of vaccines at +2…+8 °C. Plant is 14 years old and alarm events are rising.

Volume	Floor area	Base duty	Required duty
960 m³~300 pallets	160 m²	21.1 kW	30.4 kW+20% · incl. fault uplift

• The 20% ageing-plant uplift reflects real capacity loss on old compressors — plan replacement, not another top-up.
• GDP compliance adds requirements beyond duty: mapping, redundant cooling, alarmed monitoring and validated backup power. Include them in the RFQ scope.

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Fruit & vegetable packhouse cold room

A produce exporter pre-cools and stores 400 pallets of vegetables at +2 °C. Heavy icing on the evaporators.

Volume	Floor area	Base duty	Required duty
1,280 m³~400 pallets	213 m²	28.2 kW	38.9 kW+15% · incl. fault uplift

• Field heat and respiration make produce loads higher per pallet than packaged goods — confirm pull-down requirements separately.
• The 15% defrost uplift covers latent load and icing; specify a defrost regime matched to high-humidity product.

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Frozen distribution cross-dock with door problems

A 3PL runs a 2,000-pallet frozen cross-dock at −22 °C. Doors stay open during peaks and frost builds up around them.

Volume	Floor area	Base duty	Required duty
6,400 m³~2,000 pallets	1,067 m²	204.8 kW	282.6 kW+15% · incl. fault uplift

• The 15% infiltration uplift compensates until door discipline, seals and air curtains are fixed — it is not a substitute for the repair.
• At this scale, compare the uplift energy cost against the cost of fast doors and dock shelters; the retrofit usually pays back first.

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Run your own numbers

The calculator applies exactly this method to your quantity, temperature and fault — and sends the result straight into the quote request so you never retype it.

Open the sizing calculator Diagnose an existing fault

Buyer brief · cold room sizing

How to size a cold room before you ask suppliers for prices

Size from the product, not the building: start with peak stored volume (pallets or tonnes), daily inbound throughput and its entry temperature, the target temperature band and how often doors open. Room volume follows from racking and aisles; the refrigeration capacity follows from the load. Two rooms with the same floor area can need very different equipment.

Input to fix first	Why it changes the quote
Peak pallet positions or tonnes stored	Sets net storage volume, racking type and room height.
Daily inbound tonnes and entry temperature	Product pull-down is often the largest single load — warm product needs more capacity than storage alone.
Temperature band (chilled / frozen / blast)	Defines insulation thickness, floor heating, defrost method and compressor selection.
Door openings per hour and dock design	Warm-air infiltration can dominate small, busy rooms.
Site ambient design temperature	Condenser sizing and energy use depend on local climate.

Planning limits

Calculator outputs are preliminary planning figures, not an engineering design or quotation.
Final capacity must be confirmed by the supplier's own load calculation at your stated conditions.

Cold room size calculator Cooling load calculator Door infiltration calculator Send a reviewed request

ColdMatch is free for buyers and independent of suppliers. Requests are reviewed manually for industrial projects from USD 250,000. · Last reviewed 12 Oct 2026

Local context · Brazil and Mexico

Standards, tariffs and currency to state in a Brazil or Mexico request

Suppliers quote very differently when local rules and the power tariff are left open. Name them in the request so every proposal is priced on the same basis.

Brazil

Rules to ask suppliers to address

NR-36 (meat and poultry processing workplace safety)
NR-13 (boilers, pressure vessels and piping)
ABNT NBR 16069 (refrigeration system safety)
MAPA / SIF inspection for animal-origin products
ANVISA RDC 430/2020 (medicine storage and distribution)

Electricity tariff structure

Large consumers buy on ANEEL time-of-use tariffs (tarifa verde or azul) with peak/off-peak energy, contracted demand and monthly bandeira surcharges. Use figures from your own utility bill.

Currency

Quote in BRL (R$) or USD, stating the exchange rate and its date (Central Bank PTAX); say whether ICMS, IPI, import duties and freight are included.

Mexico

Rules to ask suppliers to address

NOM-020-STPS-2011 (pressure vessels)
NOM-018-STPS-2015 (hazardous chemical communication, e.g. ammonia)
NOM-251-SSA1-2009 (food hygiene practices)
COFEPRIS requirements for medicine storage

Electricity tariff structure

Medium-voltage industrial supply is usually billed by CFE on time-of-use tariffs such as GDMTH (base, intermediate and peak periods plus demand). Use figures from your own CFE bill.

Currency

Quote in MXN or USD, stating the exchange rate and its date (Banxico FIX); say whether IVA, import duties (IGI) and freight are included.

Send a reviewed request Brazil calculators (R$)

A checklist to raise with suppliers, not a statement that any design complies. Confirm current versions with the local authority. Reviewed 12 Oct 2026.

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