Cold storage is where every conventional floor marking method fails, and most suppliers quietly avoid the question.

Why tape does not work in a freezer

Pressure-sensitive adhesive needs warmth to flow and bond. Below freezing it does not wet the surface properly, so the bond never fully forms — the tape looks applied and lifts within weeks. Applying tape in a freezer at all usually means warming the floor first, which is impractical in an operating facility.

Then there is condensation. Every time a cold surface meets warmer moist air, moisture forms at exactly the interface where the adhesive is trying to hold. Edges lift, forklifts catch them, and the marking peels in strips.

Why paint does not work either

Floor coatings have a minimum application and cure temperature — typically well above freezing. In an operating cold store you cannot reach it without shutting the room down, warming it, applying, curing and re-cooling. That is days of lost storage, and it has to be repeated every time the marking wears.

Why projection does

A projected sign never touches the floor. There is no adhesive to fail, no coating to cure, no edge for a pallet jack to catch. The projector mounts overhead in the cold aisle and the marking is simply light.

That also solves the problem cold stores have with change. Racking gets reconfigured, pick faces move, and a painted aisle becomes wrong. Repositioning a projector takes minutes and costs nothing.

What to specify for refrigerated and frozen environments

• Fanless, passively cooled projectors. Fans pull moist air through the housing, and in a cold room that means condensation and ice inside the unit. Our PCE range is fanless by design.
• IP65 sealing against condensation and washdown
• UL/cUL certification — the 60W, 90W, 150W and 300W PCE models carry it
• Wide operating temperature range, so the same unit works in a chilled dock and a frozen aisle

Where sites use it

Frozen and chilled aisles, blast freezers, refrigerated docks and the temperature transition zones between them — which are the worst of all worlds for adhesives, because the surface cycles through the dew point several times a day.

Typical markings: pedestrian walkways through picking aisles, forklift traffic warnings at aisle ends, keep-clear zones, and dock-door pedestrian warnings.

Talk to us about your facility

Tell us the temperature range, ceiling height and what you are trying to mark, and we will specify it properly — and send you a projection mockup showing what it will look like on your floor.

info@cyanvisuals.com · 1-855-919-9392