Building for 20 degrees below zero

Construction company De Vries en Verburg was awarded the execution by developer and owner WDP Development to expand the commercial building for Leen Menken Foodservice Logistics with a new cold store. Leen Menken is a logistics service provider that helps producers, importers and wholesalers grow further. For example by taking care of end to end, at the right temperature, on time and complete. In a little less than a year she managed to realize a cold and freezer storage, preparation and dispatch area, order picking areas and several offices. "It was a nice challenge and the end result is worth it," says Ard Egas, work planner and project leader at De Vries en Verburg.

The project began in January 2022, when WDP Development commissioned construction. Since December 2022, Leen Menken has been using the new building. "We completed the cold store in just under a year and now it is in full use," Egas says.

De Vries en Verburg has a broad presence in development and construction, from non-residential construction to residential construction. The company also has experience in building cold stores. But according to Egas, that doesn't mean things are suddenly very simple. "A big job like this always remains a nice challenge." 100 meters deep

Construction proceeded in three phases. "We were dealing with a limited construction site and a building about 100 meters deep, where a tower crane could not stand next to the building," Egas says. "The construction was divided into three compartments, with two cold stores and different floor levels." In addition, the company had to consider the eventual use of the cold store. "Any misalignment of the floor would have a major impact on the use of the racking, so it was carefully poured and fitted with embedded rails for mobile racking." Another challenge was that the new building was attached to an existing building, requiring the refrigeration system to be integrated while not interfering with operations in the existing building. 

The challenge of low temperatures

With the exception of the area around the loading and unloading docks, the entire building has a continuous temperature between 20 and 25 degrees below zero. "When building such a cold building, a number of specific points of interest apply. For example, compared to a normal distribution center, with a cold store you have to know where the temperature changes are," says Egas. "Therefore, the construction is also divided into pieces, so that they do not continue in other temperature zones. With different couplings, we built the structure as a whole to be stable."

One of the challenges was regulating the temperature. "At these low temperatures, freezing through to the bottom is very important. You especially don't want to have freeze damage when water starts to expand." One way to prevent freeze damage was to install a second floor. "Unlike a normal commercial building, this cold store has two floors with insulation in between, with the lower floor having underfloor heating
to prevent freezing through. To prevent the water in the underfloor heating pipes from freezing, the underfloor heating is filled with glycol."

Heating elements were installed throughout the building to prevent temperature changes and freeze damage. "Also, all windows have double frames with a heating element between them. To ensure that doors don't freeze shut, there is edge heating in those as well." All in all, a large project with several interesting challenges. "Nevertheless, the cooperation was only positive," says Egas. "And with the good end result, we and the client are very satisfied!"