Improving Employee Safety With Air Curtains

The major benefit of using air curtains is significantly reduced energy usage, thus saving businesses money whilst improving their green credentials. However, as an article on the Berner website highlights, air curtains can also provide a low-cost way to improve employee safety levels in the workplace.

Drive-through windows are one example of this; with people's days becoming longer and their lives busier, drive-through businesses are increasingly in popularity. For staff operating these windows, they can be exposed to harmful vehicle emissions, flies and insects, and potentially extreme temperatures for long lengths of time.

Installing an air curtain above these openings will divide the indoor/outdoor environments and block the infiltration of fumes and insects – all whilst being gentle enough to not blow paper money out of people's hands.

Furthermore, many units can be easily installed on walls using readily-available tools and plugged into a conventional wall socket – meaning there is no need to get a contractor in to set it up.

Air curtains can also be beneficial for industrial or commercial workers who need to pass through interior and exterior doorways. High-speed, automated doors can cause a number of injuries, such as closing too quickly on workers, or forklift trucks hitting doors and their contents falling on workers.

Wherever it isn't practical to keep a door closed - especially if the area is a refrigeration room, for example - air curtains can segregate the environments, whilst allowing the door to remain open during operative hours.

Another safety advantage of air curtains is that they are able to dry floors, thus reducing slippage, which can be a major cause of accidents in industrial workplaces. Cool storage areas next to warmer loading docks are likely to cause condensation on the ground - air curtains can minimise this safety hazard, especially if they are fitted with on-board heating coils.