How Air Energy’s Design Expertise Helped Improve Temperature Consistency, Reduce Installation Time and Protect Crop Value.

How Air Energy’s Design Expertise Helped Improve Temperature Consistency, Reduce Installation Time and Protect Crop Value.

The Challenge

For a medicinal cannabis grower, consistency is everything.

Not mostly consistent. Not consistent when everything goes according to plan.

The same growing conditions, chamber after chamber, crop after crop.

Because when a single crop can be worth close to $500,000, "we'll just shut the chamber down for a while" isn't a particularly attractive strategy.

The client needed more consistent heating across its growing chambers to improve crop uniformity and yield. They also needed to do it without turning the installation into a lengthy shutdown.

Which left us with a fairly simple question. 

Could we change the system without creating a whole new problem?

The Air Energy Solution

We started by looking at what the heating system actually needed to do.

Not what the old system had always done.

Our design team worked with the client to rethink the existing pipework and develop a solution specifically for the growing chambers.

Instead of traditional welded galvanised pipe, we designed and supplied a Europress Carbon Steel press-fit system beneath the crop chambers.

No welding.

No open flames.

And considerably less time spent standing around waiting for things to cool down.

The press-fit design allowed the system to be installed significantly faster than a traditional welded system, helping minimise disruption to an operating facility.

Which is useful when there's half a million dollars' worth of plants above your head.

The Result

The new system delivered:

  • Up to 10× faster installation than traditional welded systems

  • Installation completed in approximately ¼ of the time

  • No welding or open-flame hot works

  • More consistent heating across the growing chambers

  • Greater consistency across crop batches

  • Less disruption to an operating facility

The important result wasn't simply that the pipe went in faster.

It was that the installation could happen without asking the client to choose between improving the system and protecting production.

The Difference Was in the Design

We didn't simply replace one pipe system with another.

We started with the thing the client actually needed: more consistent growing conditions, with as little disruption as possible.

Then we designed the pipework around that requirement.

Sometimes the difference isn't the pipe.

It's thinking about what the pipe is actually there to do.