It’s a busy period here for the team at Celsius Hire! Installing chillers for many of the ice rinks popping up across the UK.
If you’re visiting an ice rink over the festive season; you’ll see glossy ice, illuminated with lights and all the trimmings! But what you won’t see is how it all went down in the weeks leading up to the grand opening.
Delivery
Often the delivery of multiple chillers to site needs to be carefully timed and planned; especially because ice rink chiller installations need to work seamlessly alongside other aspects of the ice rink build. For example we need to be in line with structure build, lighting installation, rink laying amongst other factors; communication with our client is crucial to a smooth ice rink install.
Installation
Once delivered we need to get cracking on the install. Again, as with the delivery, communication is absolutely crucial. Placement of the chillers and ancillary equipment is so important; firstly to allow us to properly deliver cooling to the ice pad and secondly to be out of visitor view once the ice rink is open. Ice rink chillers really have to be some of our tidiest work as it’s one of the few customer facing sector installs which we provide.
Our team is incredibly well versed in ice rink installs; and to some of our engineers it’s where they started their careers! Needless to say we’ve got this!
The Equipment
This will really vary across the different ice rink sites; some need multiple large chillers and masses of pipework; some smaller rinks can run off a small chiller system and minimal pipework.
The set up is generally similar to below; our chiller system connecting to a rink system provided by our client, flowing a water/glycol mix at low temperatures through the header pipes and in turn the white tubing (mat ribbon), before a few inches of water is slowly added on top of the rink mat ribbon which in turn freezes. And voila… you have a thick layer of ice.
Cardiff Castle Ice Rink
One of our biggest annual ice rink installs featuring 6x 300KW chillers, 2x 125KW chillers, 3x 1000Litre buffer tanks, 8 pumps and over 1km of flexible hoses, fittings and adapters… completed in just 6 days! It’s a huge task but our team smashed it – and the finished ice rink is really something else!
London Rooftop Ice Rink
An example of one of our smaller chiller packages chilling a rooftop ice rink last year. This install set up is the same as above but on a smaller scale; with two 125KW chillers connected to the rink system. Our engineers all wanted to attend this install – the views over the city are absolutely something else!!
The Results: From Start to Finish
We strive to make the hire process as smooth as possible; there are so many moving parts when it comes to any install (large or small). But the team at Celsius Hire are dedicated and work together; as well as with the customer to get it done! Precision planning, expert know how and a passion for what we do – a recipe for smooth sailing!
“Ice rink season is so busy for us – but we’ve got it down to a fine art! Installing up and down the UK ready for festive ice rinks; it’s a huge task and for sure one of our favourite times of the year!”
