Warehouse Design.
—Under this heading we will discuss the standard pork building for curing meats and for chilling hogs.
Floor Area.
—The warehouse building as usually laid out should provide 10,000 square feet on each floor, and as many stories in height as needed and as many units as needed. It is common and usually best to set posts sixteen feet centers in each direction, making sections sixteen feet square. This area seems to lend itself best to practical usage in packing house work.
Fire-Proof Buildings.
—The permanence of the premises, the value of the product in storage, and many other points make the advocacy of fire-proof warehouses commendable. The warehouse, where floors are likely to be used for storing moist or wet goods, or for curing meats, should preferably be solid concrete floors, rather than tile, with concrete joists and concrete topping.
Floor Construction.
—The ideal packing house floor is as yet to be discovered. What appears to be the best in a warehouse is a monolithic floor, treated under the zones where meats are to be piled, and all trucking thoroughfares paved with brick or tiles, or perhaps an asphaltum preparation, as the latter can be replaced.
Coolers.
—In most instances it is best to arrange the coolers on one or more of the upper floors. Cooler design varies, but late practice has been drifting back to the old system of open spray brine which is described elsewhere. The customary practice in the United States is for some type of natural circulation, as by the use of ducts with air chilling facilities above the chill rooms. Practice has proven for fresh meats that the use of this system is far superior to that of forced draft, sometimes called “indirect” refrigeration.