The primary reason for a facility retrofit is purely that the method that you currently use is not working to the best of its. abilities.
This generally boil down to a few reasons;
The gear in use cannot provide the desired results
There have been considerable technology improvements since the original installation
Expanding/changing the current configuration
It just won’t get the job done.
There are many variables when it comes to selecting equipment to meet your requirements and the more of those variables you identify and consider during the design phase the lower the likelihood of failure in the future. The challenge is that there are many and it comes down to order of importance. For instance you may say temperature is the only thing that matters in the end but when night cycle comes on and the humidity spikes significantly for several weeks you may reconsider as mold might actually be a more threatening issue.
Another example may be having excess capacity but then realizing you are using precious electrical panel space for systems that may never run. Everything is a trade-off with very few easy answers but if you can identify your priorities upfront you will limit the downsides and potential upgrades/retrofits in the future.
The most common issue tends to be an engineer or Master Grower making selections based more on pricing/availability and less on the designed calculations, perhaps not considering the worst case scenario vs. best case scenario. Along those same limes we see designs based on common residential or commercial “comfort cooling” vs. more server room heat density required for a grow room. Lastly the big omission witnessed a lot is the consideration that these are living, transpiring organisms that are never static in their growth trajectories meaning week to week can vary considerably and to understand that dynamic.
Unlock bigger & better yields with the newest, latest, & greatest
Technology in indoor agriculture especially vertical multi-level farms is evolving fast. Whether it’s LED lighting, automation, maximum density solutions or HVACD if you have a facility that’s more than a handful of years old there are many new solutions to take advantage of. When you think the life cycle of equipment in these harsh environments you start to have to make decisions whether to maintain and fix what’s there or put that money towards something new. The latter requires large upfront improvement costs but will unlock new abilities and should dramatically reduce headaches where as the older tried and true gear will keep marching on at it’s limits for as long as you’re willing to keep it going. All too often we see new owners of existing facilities completely gut their rooms for no better reason than to leave their mark on the “new operation”. We don’t generally see this as a great reason and would always recommend incremental improvements if possible, leading to longer time horizons for gear replacement while maintaining healthy business fundamentals and really understanding the needs of the space before major overhauls.
As we previously discussed, ranking your order of importance is fundamental in selecting equipment especially the latest and greatest in technology. We recommend looking at the gear that absolutely needs to be upgraded to even run then work up from there as a bottom-up approach vs. top-down.
Upgrades make everything better
Sometimes wiping the slate clean can make everything better. There’s a clarity that goes with starting fresh. This clarity will usually lead to simplification of processes as you remove many of the headaches of previous times and have carried those tough learnings to the next phase in your business. If budget allows this can be the best of all worlds as you now have access to the newest technologies while reassessing what next steps you need to take to succeed.
During major upgrade cycles it’s important to learn as much as you can from each vendor to understand what changes have been made to each component as to better understand where the value is beyond that’s shiny and new. At Excel Air Systems we still believe in not fixing something if it’s not broken but rather “tweaking” or making slight improvements over time to get the desired result.
How Can we Help?
our process
We will always start with an exploratory call or email to understand what your pain points are today and where you’d like to be in the future.
Once we have an idea of the path we’ll come up with a few different scenarios depending on how deep you want to go. More times than not we’ll start with improvements to the facility that don’t require any new gear at all but rather slight “tweaks” in settings to your existing systems such as sunrise/sunset settings to better handle the peaks and valleys in your day/night cycles and roll these values more evenly or improving airflow through a handful of small changes to better cycle the room and get more of your existing capacity. There are dozens of “tweaks” that can be made in any facility.
Through this process we try to provide a high level of value for free to demonstrate how we’re capable of helping you and go from there. If we continue to proceed deeper in regards to adding or swapping out equipment we’ll look at all the variables and alongside access the order of importance to provide you and your team with a thoughtful rollout plan. We want this to be easy, efficient and effective.
Reach out to us today and experience why we take so much pride in our service and support.
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