Applying cooling to four archive store rooms

Protecting our heritage at IWM Duxford

Proud to be responsible for the design, supply and installation of the cooling system in four insulated chambers at one of our most popular national museums.

IWM Duxford is Europe’s largest air museum and as well as showcasing the history of aviation, it conserves memorabilia including film and documents. A precision-controlled cooling system with a common plant room was required for store rooms housed within a listed building in order to preserve these valuable items in optimal condition.

Key challenges:

• Maintaining a constant temperature with minimal heat swings to protect the film and other materials
• Designing an emergency backup solution so materials would not need to be removed from the room if systems failed
• Lowest possible energy consumption

Solutions:

• Installed two small independent HFC systems per store allowing for one to be replaced in the event of catastrophic failure
• 200mm insulation and extensive vapour sealing ensures the integrity of the store and minimises heat loads
• A separate dehumidifier feeds pre-conditioned air to ensure a positive pressure
• Each condensation unit has its own power supply and electrical isolation and all elements of the system may be isolated in the plant room distribution board

Products Supplied: TBA