HVAC Case Study
Dedeman Stores Garden Area

The problem

Staff, plants and customers at Dedeman are breathing a sigh of relief following the installation of Breezair evaporative coolers.

Dedeman is the largest chain of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) stores in Romania specialized in home and garden products.

The area dedicated to garden products and plants in the store is designed as a greenhouse. This is the most suitable structure able to provide an appropriate climate for the plants’ life.

However, this type of construction has the great disadvantage of overheating during summer. The garden has glass on all sides and in the area we could register temperatures of up to 40°C during summer months. This was causing plants to wilt and die, great discontent on the staff and customers’ loss. Plants constantly needed fresh air to support the process of photosynthesis and respiration, staff and customers needed comfortable temperatures to stay in the area. A cooling solution was definitely essential.

The solution

As a first option, Dedeman looked into the possibility of using conventional air conditioning to cool the area. This would unquestionably have granted an effective cooling but operating costs would have been prohibitive considering the size of the area to cool down.

In this scenario, West Air Group, our distributor for Romania, approached Dedeman. They suggested an alternative solution: the Breezair cooling systems.

Breezair evaporative cooling could have improved conditions  for customers, staff and plants. Moreover it is a cost effective solution to install and run. Moreover, it would have provided a short-term payback, as the garden area would have lost less stock and increased sales. In addition to this, the coolers filter out dust, insects and other air contaminants. The higher humidity would have reduced the plants’ need for irrigated water and prevented wilting.

“Dedeman was familiar with the conventional air conditioning system but did not know the evaporative cooling technology” explained Mr Sorin Lumina, owner of West Air Group. “In the first instance the management regarded Breezair with a bit of mistrust”. Being confident with the potentials, Mr Lumina offered Dedeman a trial installation on a single store. This would allow the customer to test the system for a year and then decide for the future.

The installation

The first Breezair unit was installed at Dedeman Roman in 2012. The air conditioning company monitored the store throughout the whole 2013. The system performed very efficiently and Dedeman was extremely satisfied. For this reason, in 2014 they decided to install Breezair cooling systems in the Dedeman stores (garden areas) all over Romania. From Bucarest to Constanta, from Tulcea to Braila, Galati, Comanesti, Suceaava, Bistrita Nasaud, Baia Mare, Satu Mare, Oradea, Cluj, Alba Iulia, Targu Mures, Miercurea Ciuc, Ramnicu Valcea, Slatina, Drobeta Turnu Severin, Timisoara, Resita, Targoviste, Pitesti. For the moment, Westair installed 141 Breezair units along different stores in areas between 600 and 2,000 sqm. Each store required between 6 and 8 coolers. To date, the Breezair evaporative system remains their first choice every time Dedeman opens a new store.

Why Breezair?

The outstanding efficiency of the cooling system, the limited electricity consumption (about 6 Kwh for a 2,000 sqm greenhouse) and the minimal maintenance costs are the features that made Breezair a perfect choice for cooling garden centres.

The advantages of the Breezair industrial evaporative air cooling system can be summarized as follows:

• Operating costs by 80% lower compared to conventional air conditioning;
• Easy and simple to install (costs by 50% lower compared to conventional installations);
• Easy to maintain;
• No synthetic refrigerants used, no additional pipes and no compressor;
• High efficiency at low energy and water consumption;
• 100% fresh air (no dust, toxic gases or odors recycled);
• No dry air, controlled level of humidity;
• Environmentally friendly thanks to reduced power use and no harmful emissions
• Spot cooling: another important advantage of this system is that it is able to cool only selected areas of the store and not the entire store. Spot cooling consists of installing units that deliver cold air just to the areas where cooling is required. This is not achievable with the conventional air conditioning systems.

How does Breezair work?