Brother Li, who runs a community supermarket, has been in a dilemma recently: he plans to install a cold storage unit, but he can’t make up his mind between air-cooled and water-cooled types, worrying that a wrong choice will bring trouble and extra costs later. In fact, for small and medium-sized merchants like Brother Li, there’s no need to hesitate when choosing a unit. By combining their own site conditions, needs and budget, the answer can be found quickly.

         First, let’s look at the air-cooled unit. Its biggest advantage is convenience and space-saving. There’s no need to build an additional cooling tower; during installation, you just need to find a flat floor or wall to fix it, and the installation can be completed in half a day. It’s especially suitable for situations like Brother Li’s, where the kitchen space of the supermarket is limited. Moreover, daily maintenance is simple: just take apart the filter and rinse the dust with a high-pressure water gun once a month to ensure cooling efficiency, and the annual maintenance cost is only about a hundred yuan. However, it also has a small disadvantage: when the outdoor temperature exceeds 35℃ in summer, the cooling speed will be about 10% slower than usual. But if the supermarket mainly stores goods like beverages and snacks that don’t have high requirements for cooling speed, it won’t affect the use at all.

         Now let’s talk about the water-cooled unit. Its strength is stable cooling and high efficiency. Sister Zhang, who is in the fresh wholesale business, uses this type. Even if the warehouse is full of newly arrived seafood on hot summer days, the unit can lower the temperature to -10℃ within 1 hour, and its energy consumption during 24-hour operation is 15% lower than that of the air-cooled type. But it needs to be equipped with a cooling tower, so the installation cost is more than 2,000 yuan higher than that of the air-cooled type. In addition, it’s necessary to add antifreeze once a quarter and clean the pipe scale, so maintenance is a bit more troublesome than the air-cooled type.

Finally, Brother Li chose the air-cooled unit according to the situation of his supermarket. After using it for a month, he feedbacked: “I usually store snacks and milk, so a slightly slower cooling speed doesn’t matter. The saved installation cost and maintenance effort are more valuable than anything else!” In fact, no matter which type you choose, as long as it fits your own needs, it’s a suitable choice.