What Is It?

Safe & Effective Refrigeration Control Anywhere, Anytime. The Basic Freeaire® Refrigeration System can be used in walk-in coolers, freezers and cold storage warehouses anywhere in the world. A Freeaire system utilizes an electronic controller called the Cooler Controllertm to finely tune the operation of standard refrigeration equipment. The microprocessor inside the model 2001 Cooler Controller knows the exact temperature that you want and the best way to achieve it. It knows when critical refrigeration system components should run and it saves energy and money by knowing when they shouldn't. It controls the condensing unit (compressor and condenser fan) and evaporator fans to keep a constant temperature throughout the space. It stops the evaporator fans when not needed, usually more than half the time, which also reduces the compressor's refrigeration load. Proper airflow is maintained when the evaporator fans switch off by operating one or more of the Freeaire's energy-efficient Circtm circulating fans. The Cooler Controller regularly and thoroughly defrosts the evaporator coils, but for only as long as they need it. It allows heaters to defog reach-in glass doors, but only when necessary. Some Freeaire systems use highly efficient replacement Evaptm evaporator fan motors that use 30 to 40% less energy than standard ones. All of these measures combine to save you huge amounts of electricity and money, whether you live at the equator or the Arctic Circle.

Outside Air Refrigeration. But it's in colder climates, where the words "snow", "ice" and "wind-chill factor" are often heard, that the Freeaire has a special talent. It taps into the greatest source of refrigeration ever created: winter. The Freeaire's Cool Breezetm Outside Air Package can use fresh, cold outside air to cool the room, simply using what Nature has so considerately and freely offered, to give the whole condensing unit and evaporator fans the winter off. Simply moving cold air from the outside to the inside is much more efficient than making cold air with a compressor system, even when the outside air is only a few degrees colder than the air it's replacing. In the northern United States, it is not uncommon for a walk-in cooler with a Freeaire system with outside air to use less than 10% of the energy needed by a compressor system for 150 days per year.

Save Energy. Half of the electricity consumed by a typical convenience store is used for refrigeration. All year long a Freeaire system will save energy by running the refrigeration equipment for a walk-in cooler or freezer only as much as it has to. You can be sure that whenever energy can be saved, it will be. Your evaporator fans, which now probably run every minute of every day, will operate 50 to 75% less. The amazingly efficient Circ fan circulates 500 cfm of air using only 36 watts of power so sometimes the rate of power consumption can drop by a factor of 30. Your reach-in door heaters may run 90% less than they do now. When these things use less electricity there will not be as much heat added to your walk-in, so your condensing unit will run less, perhaps 10 to 20% less. If you are lucky enough to live where old man winter is not a stranger, you'll have the opportunity to automatically shut off your regular refrigeration system several months each winter and cool your walk-in with fresh, cold outside air. This option can sometimes more than double your already considerable energy savings.

Save the Earth. OK, that might be overstating it a little. Afterall, some of you will just use the Freeaire to keep your sixpacks of beer colder and cheaper. But we at R.H.Travers Company expect to be part of the solution to global warming, and we might as well bring all you fellow beer drinkers along with us. There is no more ecologically sound way to refrigerate something than a Freeaire System, with or without Outside Air, unless you count storing your food in a snow bank! But it's really about time we moved on from that method, which was probably invented by cave dwellers and can be a bit inconvenient in the summertime. The jury's may be still out on whether there will be less cold and snow in the future, but even if there might be less cold outside air around in fifty years, that's no reason to act in a way to make it happen! Air pollution from electric utilities burning fossil fuels, especially the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, may be causing plantary warming, so anything we can do to reduce our dependence on electrical juice the better. A Freeaire System saving 20,000 kilowatt-hours annually can prevent 40,000 pounds of CO2 from being emitted to the atmosphere each year. The Freeaire's Basic System will work better than anything else even in the tropics, and help make the tropics less tropical at the same time! We've all got to do our part. Buy a Freeaire and help make it happen.

Save Your Equipment. Efficient operation reduces runtimes, the major source of equipment failure. With your condensing unit and evaporators running so little, and possibly even taking a winter vacation, there is much less wear and tear and your equipment should last longer. You can even hear the difference: a Freeaire cooler is usually startlingly quiet.

$ave Money. Using less energy leads to smaller monthly electric bills for the life of the system. Fewer maintenance calls and longer equipment life increase the savings. Some power companies even provide large rebates or other incentives to install energy-saving equipment like the Freeaire. Whether you're using outside air or not, a 2 year payback period is common, even before utility incentives are considered. Of course, once the Freeaire is paid for, all those savings go straight to your bottom line. All things considered, that's a pretty good way to make money.

Improve Refrigeration. A Freeaire system's Cooler Controller uses a microprocessor and thermistor temperature sensors to precisely and reliably control the refrigeration of your walk-in cooler. A temperature sensor located in the evaporator coils allows on-demand defrosting, which keeps the evaporators operating at peak efficiency. The Circ circulating fan maintains proper airflow throughout the walk-in. For those coolers with the optional Cool Breeze outside air package installed, this system is available to serve as a backup to the regular refrigeration to keep the cooler as cold as the outside temperature will permit.