May 22, 2019

No retailer in their right mind wants to close up for the day because their air conditioning is broken. You lose potential revenue every second your doors are closed, your employees lose hours, and if you sell food or perishable products there is a high potential for loss due to spoilage in high temperatures.

The good news for retailers is a solution exists to keep your doors open and prevent any perishable goods from spoiling: portable spot coolers. Here are just a few of the ways renting portable spot coolers can preserve your revenue and product in the event of an HVAC failure.

1. Customers Stay Cool In The Heat

People don’t want to spend time in an unbearably hot store, and most will leave without making a purchase or get only what they need and leave immediately. It’s not just the heat either, but also the poor air circulation and humidity that accumulates when your ventilation system is out of commission. Keep your customers comfortable with portable spot coolers, and you won’t see a decline in business or sales.

2. Employees Stay Cool And Can Continue Working

Workers don’t want to be at work if the air in their workspace is stifling. Being hot and sticky from high heat and humidity does not put anyone in a good mood, and it is difficult to maintain a high level of customer service when you are physically miserable. Having spot coolers up and running while your HVAC is repaired ensures you don’t lose business because your workers are cranky, or because they are calling out sick to avoid the heat.

3. Keeps Your Store Safer For Customers And Workers Alike

Personal comfort aside, it isn’t safe to run a retail establishment in the summer heat without some sort of cooling solution. Customers may come in dehydrated or suffering from heat exhaustion and pass out or suffer heat stroke. The same could be said of employees who are forced to work in extremely hot conditions, and an environment like this can quickly lead to formal complaints and surprise visits from OSHA inspectors. Using a temporary solution like spot coolers reduces the chance there would be a safety hazard or an incident caused by a safety hazard in your store.

4. Reduces Product Spoilage

Most portable electronics that run on batteries are not supposed to be stored in environments over a certain temperature, and if you sell chocolate bars or other candy, you can be certain large quantities of both will need to be thrown away should your HVAC fail for an extended time period. Putting in spot coolers keeps everything at safe storage temperature, reducing potential losses due to spoilage.

5. Minimizes Lost Revenue

Losing potential sales dollars and revenue because your air conditioning broke down in the middle of summer can be catastrophic for small businesses. Renting spot coolers may incur some expense, but it is often far less than the financial loss due to closure and spoilage.

If your retail business has an air conditioning failure, contact the spot cooler experts at Preferred Climate Solutions. Our team has all the experience and knowledge you need to get your store cooled down and open for business again. Call or visit our website today for more information.

To make your outdoor event a success, it’s important to make sure that you have the right size spot cooler for the job. Most event planners don’t have a tremendous amount of experience with making that determination, and this can drive up the cost of your event by ordering a unit bigger than they need.

Worse still, some planners do not rent a spot cooler that can effectively keep a tent or other area cool, and end up with little or no return on their investment. Preferred Climate Solutions can help. Here’s a quick guide to choosing the right spot cooler for your next outdoor event.

What Are Spot Coolers?

A portable air conditioner that can easily be moved to different locations, a spot cooler is an excellent way to keep a room, tent or building with no air conditioning cool even at the height of summer. Many have built-in generators or can run off their own power to keep areas cool even if there is no electricity available or your venue loses power.

Spot Cooler Sizes

Rated cooling power for spot coolers is anywhere from 1 to 5 tons, or 12,000 BTU (body temperature units) to 60,000 BTU to put it in home air conditioner terms. One or two people are generally fine with a 10,000-14,000 BTU for average summer temperatures. If the area where you need cooling tends to get up above 100 degrees Fahrenheit outdoors and it’s a large volume room, you will need significantly more cooling power, potentially as much as 34,0000 BTUs. Spot coolers come in all different sizes, but knowing which one is right for you depends on the space and how many people or the type of equipment that will be used.

Choosing The Right Size Spot Cooler

The first thing you need to do is determine the volume of the area you need to keep cool. If you don’t have access to that number, you can estimate the square footage of space by counting ceiling tiles (squares are usually 2ft. X 2 ft., rectangles are 2 ft. x 4 ft.), and then finding the height of the ceiling. For tents, just measure the height, width, and depth of your tent. Dimensions are usually marked on the package or storage container, and it may even have a measurement in cubic feet in the manual.

Once you have the cubic feet calculated, you can estimate how many cooling BTU you need to keep the temperature comfortable in a given space. For example, a 400 square foot office space with a 10 ft. ceiling with just a few people in it needs about 12,000 BTU or 1 ton of cooling. Changing the square footage while using the same ceiling height and adding equipment and people, you will need an estimate of 1 additional ton of cooling per 250 additional square feet.

Scratching your head at the math? Worried you might order the wrong spot cooler? Contact our team at Preferred Climate Solutions to get an estimate from our experienced professionals. We’ll make sure you’ve got the right spot cooler for your space and event.

Renting a tent for outdoor events is always a sound plan, but how you keep that tent cool in the Texas summer heat is less obvious. Here are some tips for keeping your tented event cool even in summer.

1. Stay In The Shade

A tent may be a portable shelter to create shade, but if the tent itself is not in a shady spot it can get hot quickly. Some venues and rental companies won’t allow you to set your tent up underneath a tree due to damage liability in a storm, but as a rule, it’s the best source of shade possible. Should the rules forbid setting up under a tall tree, find a berm, embankment or hillside that will keep you shaded for at least part of the day. You want to keep the landscape between you and the sun as much as possible, so grab your compass and set up your tent on whichever side will be in shadow during the heat of the day.

2. Asphalt Is Not Your Friend.

Level paved surfaces are great in a basement, but building a tent over asphalt makes it hot to walk to your tent. Worse still, asphalt radiates heat even if it’s not directly exposed to sunlight, so you are basically setting up your tent on the heated floor. To stay cool, set up on a grassy surface if you can.

3. Good Air Circulation Is Key

Don’t “batten down the hatches” on your tent. You want to keep ventilation panels open and allow for cross ventilation. Otherwise, you are trapping all the hot air inside, and when people start filling up the tent it only gets worse. Be smart, and keep that air flowing through.

4. Use Ceiling Fans

Nothing keeps air moving briskly like a fan, and you can actually install ceiling fans in some larger event tents. If ceiling fans are an option (you’ll need electricity), don’t hesitate. Texas summers are no joke and any additional circulation matters.

5. Rent a Spot Cooler

If you have electricity available (and even if you don’t) you may want to consider renting a spot cooler, also called a mobile air conditioning unit. Spot coolers are both air and water cooled systems that are great for cooling off the interior of tents or outbuildings with no air conditioning like barns and stock halls.

As hot as Texas gets in the summer outdoors, it’s wise to invest some of your event budgets in spot coolers to keep everything in your tent or outbuilding at a livable temperature. Preferred Climate Solutions specializes in spot coolers, and we have the knowledge and experience to get you the best unit for your event needs.

6. Evaporative Coolers

These inexpensive tent coolers to keep interior temperatures low in the summer by using a fan to circulate air over ice or ice water. The cold air blows through the tent and lowers the temperature and keeps the tent noticeably cooler. In the dry Texas heat, this is an excellent solution for cooling off your tent or tents at a summer event.

7. Misters Work Well Inside or Outside a Tent

These devices cool the air by spraying a fine mist of cold water, lowering the air temperature without creating excessive humidity. This is the ideal solution for Texas summers as the air is extremely dry and hot. Misters are so effective because they help restore humidity and keep people cool inside and outside of your tent.

Regardless of what solution you choose, it’s important to be smart and prepared to keep tents cool at outdoor events. It’s safer for you, your staff, vendors, and visitors.

A successful wedding day takes extensive planning and preparation, and making a reception just as successful is an even greater challenge. Outdoor receptions are especially complex because the weather plays a large role in how the day plays out.

Hot weather, cold weather, and precipitation are luck of the draw depending on the season of the year, but there are some ways you can minimize the effects of Mother Nature on your big day. Here are some tips for making your wedding reception successful even in bad weather:

Make Plans For Your Plans

Sometimes Plan B is not enough to contend with the curveballs and problems that life throws at you on your wedding day. Have a plan for everything from refreshments and food to seating and music, and then make a backup plan for each of those plans if everything goes wrong, especially the weather.

Tent Up

Get a tent for your outdoor reception. Even if you are hosting a wedding and reception in your own backyard or the backyard of a family member, you need a sheltered space where people can retreat from the weather so your schedule of events can continue uninterrupted. Another advantage of putting up a tent is it allows you to control the temperature with portable heating or cooling units. If you are getting married in the summer in Texas, these are a must-have item.

Make Sure You Have Some Type Of Climate Control

The ability to cool or heat a tent at an outdoor event should not be undervalued. If you get an unseasonably cold and wet day, having some upright propane heaters in or around the shelter allows your guests to keep warm and not need heavy coats over their formal wear. If your reception days is a real scorcher, having portable misting coolers running will help your guests stay cool even in an event shelter or large catering tent.

Set A Theme

It may not seem important to some, but a theme help cements your ideas together to create a memorable day that will be treasured forever. If you’re the bride and groom, it should be a meaningful theme to you both, even if it’s based around a favorite film or TV show. Wedding and event planners should take a similar approach when planning outdoor receptions, too.

Following these simple tips can make all the difference when the day of your wedding and reception finally arrives. If you take nothing else away from this, at least plan on having a tent and some sort of heating/cooling system in place for your outdoor reception. Your guests will be grateful for your foresight.