JH Whittaker & Sons
“A good company to deal with” was the comment by Brian Whittaker of JH Whittaker & Sons Ltd following the start-up of the new gas fired steam boiler at their plant in Elsdon, Wellington.
Cooke Industries Ltd, a member of the Cooke Group of Companies established in NZ in 1926, have been regularly supplying heating & cooling plant for Whittaker’s production plant needs. With many years of experience, Cooke Industries have the ability to tailor make or source units for specific applications. Equally Whittaker’s, established in 1896, have a long background of making fine chocolate & know what it takes to make their products amongst the best in the market, both in NZ & abroad.
In the production of chocolates, there are many occasions where heat is required to mix & mould the chocolate products & cooling is required to solidify them before the come out of their moulds for wrapping & packing. To meet this requirement, and over a number of years, Cooke Industries have provided engineering support, equipment selections & start-up services for products including Northvale steam & hot water boilers, Airpak air handling units, NAP acoustic silencers & Cooke ducting.
The gas fired steam boiler was arranged for “Unattended Operation” with fully automatic controls & inspection procedures to comply with the latest 72 hr operation in accordance with European codes. The full package included feed tank, blowdown vessel, water treatment & insulated flue, together with start-up & OSH compliance. A small hot water boiler accompanied the sale for an individual requirement in the plant.
In other cases, ventilation was required to cope with high plant heat loads in the Production Hall, where the various types of chocolates are produced, wrapped & packed. The need was to maintain the key wrapping & packing areas around 20ºC to prevent softening & deformation of the chocolate & to maintain the chocolate structure.
The brief was to provide equipment to maintain the temperature in the key production spaces, particularly during summer conditions using a portion of outside air for pressurisation of the space & full outside air when outside air conditions were suitable. The chosen solution were highly customised Airpak air handling units to fit the space and process constraints. The units were fitted with chilled water cooling coils, high efficiency food grade air filters, plug fans with constant air volume controls & fresh air/recirculation auto air dampers. The air ducting was designed to supply air to key locations, with the use of specialised air diffusion nozzles for specific air distribution.
The result was – No disruption of production & packaging during the hottest summer days – and a satisfied customer.
