Tubular Heaters for Refrigeration Application

Chef looking into Industrial Refrigerator

One of the aspects of selling electric heating elements that always fascinates me is discovering the different applications where electric heat can be used. In addition to the common plastics applications, I have come across various unique applications over the years such as:

exhaust heaters for the marine industry
duct heaters for drying corn
silicone rubber heaters used for heating defibrillator batteries in emergency vehicles

An obscure application I encountered was to use blown, electric heat applied to refrigerator doors. Applying heat around the edges of the refrigerator doors helps with defrosting and freeze protection. Normally heat trace cable is applied to the inner layer of the door frame. This provides limited heat to keep the doors from fogging over or icing up due to constant opening and closing. This is standard practice for this type of application that is used across multiple industries such as food and beverage, scientific, medical and transportation.

Tempco custom tubular heater

But one company Tempco worked with has figured out an improved way of de-icing their refrigerator doors using a tubular heating element. Instead of lining the door frame with heat trace cable, they designed an airflow tunnel within the door frame and applied forced heated air through this tunnel. We worked with the customer to design a custom-formed tubular heater to fit within the space limitation of their design.

The improved design lowered the maintenance costs associated with the refrigeration doors. A more consistent temperature within the doors reduced the time it takes to de-fog the doors. Additionally, if there is a heater failure, the tubular element is quicker and easier to replace than heat trace cable.