When building a brewing facility, drainage should be a major consideration. Breweries use a lot of water and other liquids in their processing, and for these reasons, you need efficient drainage to guarantee smooth operations. Such large facilities must also maintain the highest hygiene standards, which necessitate the installation of a rapid drainage system. This ensures the fast removal of waste liquids and solids from the facility’s floors and processing machinery.
Trench drains are essential in brewing facilities between fermenters, storage facilities, inside the walk-in cooler, and bottling/packaging areas. Polymer concrete drains have emerged as the most popular brewery drainage systems. Polymer concrete consists of an aggregate and a polymer binder mixed to form a tough building material.
This material boasts high performance under high tension, durability, resistance to freeze/thaw cycles, and boasts impressive compressive strengths. Polymer concrete drains also offer low permeability to water and can withstand temperatures up to 150 degrees F with no structural damage. All these qualities make this the best drain for a brewery facility.
The polymeric quality of these drains makes them smooth and the low levels of friction facilitate rapid run-off of fluids. For a brewery where fast drainage of liquids is required, this is the perfect material for a drainage system.
This post offers tips to pick a polymer concrete brewery drain. These tips will help you harness the power of these highly efficient drains.
Consider the Facility’s Drainage Needs
While polymer concrete drains are durable and highly effective, it’s important to evaluate your facility’s drainage needs beforehand. Every brewery has unique drain requirements, with some handling more volumes of liquid waste than others.
The brewing processes will also differ which means the specific waste being drained requires custom polymer concrete drains. By assessing your factory’s needs, it’s easier to the right size, strength, trench drain grates, and other features of your drains right.
Channel Construction
When designing your brewery’s polymer drains, you should consider the quality of the material. Polymer concrete drains are sturdy but the polymer materials on the market differ.
It’s important to consult with your contractor to find the right mix of polymer to guarantee high strength and chemical resistance.
If you expect the temperatures of the aster liquid to be very high, you should consider vinyl ester-based polymer concrete channels. The channels will handle the temperatures better than standard polymer concrete drains.
Find the Right Drain Grating
Trench drain grates are critical for the overall performance of a channel drain system. If not chosen carefully, grates can become the weak link in your brewery’s drainage system. In a brewery facility, you need durable and weather-resistant grating material that can also withstand heavy loads. You might install highly effective polymer concrete brewery channels but without the appropriate grate covers, they will fail.
The best channel grating will boost your brewery’s drains’ performance by facilitating faster collections of waste liquids. When installing drain channels, you should also design and determine the type of grates to use. In addition to strength, you should consider corrosion resistance, load-bearing capacity, UV resistance, aesthetics, slip resistance, temperature resistance, and quality construction.
Look for trench grating that easily blends with the rest of the flooring at your manufacturing facility. Such grates should also be easy to install, remove and maintain. They play an important role in maintaining the high hygiene standards for your drain system. You can choose from multiple patterns and styles to suit both functional and aesthetic requirements.
There are different materials to choose from, including natural stone, stainless steel grating, iron grating, PVC grating and others. Before making your choice, take time to assess each of these grating materials against your factory’s drainage needs.
Choose a Reputable Brand
The popularity of polymer concrete in construction has seen more brands manufacturing these products. Multiple brands now make these trench drains, and you need to take time to identify the best.
Read reviews and testimonials from other breweries, ask for recommendations from contractors and compare multiple products on the market. You should look for a warranty on the drains, satisfaction guarantee, lifespan, manufacturing processes, certification standards, and other features that guarantee the highest quality for your polymer concrete brewery drains.
Ask For Multiple Quotes
Drainage at a brewery is critical and as such, you should take time to plan, design and find the best drain system. Now that you’ve decided on polymer concrete drains, talk to different suppliers, and ask for quotes.
When comparing these quotes, go further than the pricing and instead consider features of the drains, warranty, types of trench grates, quality, after-sales service, and other outstanding factors.
Wrapping Up
Polymer concrete brewery drains are durable, efficient, and easy to customize to suit your facility’s drainage needs. To leverage these benefits, you have to find the best products on the market. These tips offer the best place to start, thus ensuring you buy and install the most effective drain system at your brewery.