Vapac provides humidity for leaf room at Gallaher
When tobacco company Gallaher needed to replace its aged humidifiers, it called in Vapac Humidity Control who had installed the original units over 20 years ago.
The units were installed when Gallaher first built its modern purpose-built facility in Weybridge, Surrey. An air conditioned and environment with humidification was part of the specifications from the outset to provide a comfortable working environment for employees but to provide a close control environment for the ‘Leaf Room’.
The Leaf Room is where Gallaher receives samples of tobacco from its plantations across the globe that are examined and smoked prior to being manufactured into cigarettes and cigars. Integrity and quality of brands is paramount and temperature and RH controls are essential in maintaining the quality of tobacco in the Leaf Room.
If the atmosphere is too dry, the tobacco becomes crispy, starts to break down and is not able to bind to make a cigarette or cigar. Gallaher archives samples for up to three years to enable comparisons with previous years’ products; accurate temperature control is crucial.
Time took its toll on the humidifiers, which began to stop working as efficiently. Despite regular maintenance, spare parts were increasingly difficult to source and replacing the units became a priority.
“Humidification has always been important to Gallaher,” says Dave Harkman “When the humidifiers started to fail, our concerns focused on the comfort of employees and the stability of the tobacco’s environment, we contacted Vapac and Humi-Tech who were quick to respond.”
Three Vapacs from the LE range, two LE90PDs and one LE18D were selected to replace the existing five electrode boilers in the roof top plant rooms. Vapac’s VIP installer Humi-Tech. carried out the installations The LE range as with all of Vapacs products uses the latest advances in technology to optimise reliability and effective operation.
Two of the units provide humidification to the offices as part of the comfort cooling system and run for 13 hours a day with set temperature of 21C with 45% RH. The other unit provides humidification for the Leaf Room only and is operational 24/7. The required temperature is 15ºC with 65%RH.
Although in a hard water area, this has not affected the efficiency of the units. The latest VOS-6 management programme helps to reduce the total throughput of water by reducing wastage that should in turn reduce the total build up of scale and extend the operational life of the cylinders.
Few humidifiers can boast such longevity as those at Gallaher’s. “It was quite a surprise to discover that the units were 20 years old and an endorsement of the robustness and durability of our products,” says Ray Crowle, Vapac Humidity Control’s Sales and Project Engineer. “Humidifier technology has advanced considerably since their installation and we were able to offer a solution that offered the required RH but using fewer units.”