Food Cold Store
Engineering, fabrication and erection of a cold store building. The insulated envelope is the product here — a thermal bridge at a purlin line is a defect, not a detail.
View projectStanding Seam, Sandwich Panel & Skylight
Insulated sandwich panels in Qatar
An insulated sandwich panel is a wall or roof panel made of two metal sheets with insulation between them. It is used where a building has to hold a controlled temperature inside, such as a cold store or food store.
Drawings or a written scope is enough to price it.
Insulated Sandwich Panels
A panel insulates well on its own; the joints decide how the wall performs.
Masas’s standing seam, sandwich panel and skylight line includes a completed cold store for Ezze Food in Al Wakrah, where the insulated envelope is the product, and a food storage facility for a trading group with a temperature-controlled interior.
Insulated Sandwich Panels
What is an insulated sandwich panel?
It is a factory-made panel with three layers: an outer metal sheet facing the weather, an inner metal sheet facing the room, and a layer of insulation between them. Because it arrives on site as one piece, the wall or roof is closed and insulated in a single operation, instead of sheeting, insulation and lining going up separately.
Panels are used where the temperature inside matters: cold stores, food storage and processing buildings, and production areas whose inner walls must be kept clean. They also suit ordinary buildings where the aim is to keep the sun’s heat out. The same system can form the walls, the roof, or both.
The insulation value on a data sheet describes the panel alone. A finished wall performs only as well as its weakest points, and those are the joints between panels, the corners, the doors and the fixings into the steel. That is why the installation detail, more than the brochure, decides how well a building holds its temperature.
Walls and roofs of cold stores
Food storage buildings with a temperature-controlled interior
Processing halls that need cleanable inner surfaces
Doors, openings and skylights detailed with the panels
How a sandwich panel project runs
The envelope follows the same approval and inspection stages as the steel frame, starting with the condition it must hold.
01
Interior condition agreed
Masas confirms in writing the condition the envelope must hold, the walls and roofs covered, and the doors and openings included, before it issues a quotation.
02
Joints detailed and approved
Shop drawings, including the panel layout, joints, corners and openings, go to your consultant with the method statement, inspection and test plan and risk assessment, for approval against QCS 2014.
03
Materials inspected
Panels, fixings, seals and trims are prepared and inspected against the approved plan before installation, so every joint is made with the materials the consultant approved.
04
Installed and closed out
Installation is sequenced with the main contractor’s programme and with the frame where Masas builds that too. Snagging, as-built drawings and the certificates your consultant needs close the package.
Before you decide
Where a panel envelope’s performance is decided
Four decisions matter more than the choice of panel. Each belongs on the drawings before the panels are ordered.
The temperature and humidity the building must hold set the build-up: the core, the joint details and the sealing. A chilled store, a frozen store and an air-conditioned warehouse need different envelopes, so the interior condition is agreed first and the panels are specified from it.
Every side lap, end lap and corner is a possible gap. Joints need to be tight, sealed on the correct face, and continuous around corners and where the roof meets the walls. A well-insulated panel installed with poor joints gives a poorly insulated wall.
Steel conducts heat. Where panels fix to purlins and girts, the lighter steel members of the frame, heat can cross the envelope. In a cold store that line is where condensation and ice form, which is why the frame and the panel fixings are detailed together.
Loading doors, personnel doors, skylights and pipes through the wall each interrupt the insulation, and each needs its own framing, insulated trims and seals. Fix their sizes and positions early, because the steel frame and the panel layout are both drawn around them.
Plain terms
Terms you will see in a panel specification
These words describe where heat and moisture can get through an insulated envelope, and how the design stops them.
Core
The insulation layer between the two metal skins. Its material and thickness are chosen in the design to suit the condition inside the building and the building’s fire requirements.
Thermal bridge
A path of material that carries heat straight past the insulation, such as steel or a fixing running from outside to inside. In a cold store it lets warmth in and creates a cold spot where moisture condenses.
Side lap and end lap
Side laps are the long joints where panels lock together side by side. End laps are where one roof panel overlaps the next down the slope. Each lap must be sealed and kept insulated, or it becomes a gap in the envelope.
Vapour seal
The sealants and tapes at joints that stop humid outside air getting into the wall or roof. When moist air reaches a cold surface inside the envelope, it turns to water or ice there.
For a quotation
What to send for an accurate quotation
The condition inside
What the building will hold and the temperature and humidity it needs, or the consultant’s specification for the envelope if one exists.
Wall and roof drawings
Elevations and a roof plan showing which surfaces are panelled, their heights and lengths, and any internal partitions to be built in panel.
A schedule of doors and openings
The size and position of every loading door, personnel door, skylight and service penetration, so each can be detailed and priced with its trims and seals.
Who builds the frame
Whether Masas supplies the steel frame too, or the panels fix to a frame by others, in which case send its purlin and girt drawings.
Record
Where we have delivered this
Projects under Masas's standing seam, sandwich panel and skylight line. The record names the line, not the system on each job, so ask which references used sandwich panels.
A food storage facility for a trading group
Engineering, fabrication and erection of a food storage building, with the envelope detailed for a temperature-controlled interior.
View projectA date processing and packing factory
Engineering, fabrication and erection of a food processing building, detailed for a hygienic production environment.
View project
Mineral Water Factory
Design, fabrication and erection of the plant building. A bottling hall is a wash-down environment, which governs the cladding and the detailing at every junction.
View project
Retail Plaza
Design, fabrication and erection supervision for eight buildings in a single retail plaza — a repeated structural bay with architectural steel exposed to a public promenade and to coastal conditions.
View projectMore in this service
The other parts of this service, each on its own page with its own evidence.
Common questions
- Does Masas build insulated envelopes for cold stores?
- Yes. Masas’s record includes Ezze Food’s cold store in Al Wakrah, a completed engineering, fabrication and erection package in which the insulated envelope is the product. It also includes a food storage facility for a trading group in the Industrial Area, with the envelope detailed for a temperature-controlled interior.
- Why do joints and fixings matter more than the panel?
- Because the insulation is only continuous inside each panel. At joints, corners and openings, performance depends on how the pieces were fitted and sealed, and where panels fix to steel purlins, the steel carries heat through. In a cold store that is where condensation and ice form. Masas treats the installation detail at joints and openings as where thermal performance is decided.
- Can the panels and the steel frame come under one contract?
- Yes. Roofing and cladding systems are named in Masas’s ISO-certified scope alongside structural steel and pre-engineered buildings, so the frame and the panels can come under one subcontract. That puts the purlin line, where the panels fix to the frame and where thermal bridges form, under one party’s responsibility.
- Can Masas install panels on a frame built by others?
- Yes. Masas installs roofing and cladding on frames it has fabricated and on frames supplied by others. In that case the frame drawings, especially the purlins and girts the panels fix to, are needed early, because the panel fixings and joint lines follow the steel.
- Which Masas projects used sandwich panels?
- Masas’s record groups projects under its standing seam, sandwich panel and skylight line without recording which system each one used. The cold store, food buildings, bottling plant and retail plaza on this page belong to that line. Ask Masas to confirm which of them used sandwich panels.
Need a quotation for this?
Send drawings or a scope and we will come back with a quotation.
