A walk-in cold room is the refrigeration decision you make once and live with for a decade. Get the specification right and it quietly changes how the kitchen buys: bulk deliveries, proper separation of raw and prepared, an end to rationing shelf space. Get it wrong and you are working around it every service. Here is how we size them with clients.
Chill or freeze — settle the temperature band first
Chill rooms hold roughly +2 to +8 °C and cover produce, dairy, prepared mise en place and most raw goods. Freezer rooms run below zero and change the room's construction: thicker insulation, heated door frames, a floor that can take it. If your question is really about frozen stock volume, start at freezer rooms instead. Many kitchens end up with both — a chill room worked daily and a smaller freezer beside it.
Size the room around your menu, not the space left over
The honest sizing question is not "what fits" but "how often do we want a delivery?" Weekly deliveries need roughly twice the volume of twice-weekly ones. Count your peak week, not your average. Allow for the pallet or trolley you will actually wheel in, gangway to reach the back shelf, and air circulation around the stack — a room packed wall to wall does not hold temperature evenly. Cold storage is the one purchase clients regret undersizing.
Panel thickness: 60, 100 or 130 mm
Panels are the shell, and the thickness sets both insulation and running cost. Thinner panels suit chill rooms in temperate back-of-house; thicker ones earn their place on freezer rooms, on any wall facing a hot kitchen, and anywhere the compressor would otherwise fight the building. Our cold room panels run in 60, 100 and 130 mm, so the room can be specified to the load rather than to a catalogue default.
Doors take more punishment than the room
The door is opened hundreds of times a day and is expected to seal perfectly every one of them. Hinged doors with magnetic gaskets are the standard for chilled storage; sliding doors save gangway where space is tight; PVC strip curtains and traffic swing doors keep cold in while trolleys move through. Most working rooms use a combination — a proper door for the seal, a curtain for the traffic. The full range sits in cold room doors.
Monoblock or remote refrigeration
A monoblock unit mounts straight onto the room: simpler to install, quicker to commission, everything in one place. A remote unit puts the condensing side elsewhere, which keeps the noise and the waste heat out of the kitchen — worth it near a pass or a dining room, and often the only sane option for larger rooms. Compare formats in refrigeration units.
Not sure which way to size it? Send us your menu, your delivery rhythm and the space you have. We have specified rooms for 3,000+ venues, and the sizing conversation takes ten minutes.
