A 250,000 sq ft, 32 ft clear-height distribution warehouse — unit heaters and HVLS destratification fans for the bulk storage floor, radiant dock heat and air curtains at the loading dock, and a single small RTU carved out just for the office mezzanine, all built around the industry-standard heating/ventilation-only design philosophy for buildings like this one.
The project brief: a 400 ft × 625 ft, 32 ft clear-height dry-storage warehouse with a 40-door loading dock and a 2,500 sq ft office/break room mezzanine, in a cold-climate location with a 5°F winter design temperature. The overwhelming majority of this building — the racked storage floor — is never cooled at all, which is the deliberate, standard design philosophy for buildings like this rather than an oversight, and it's the central engineering question this case study answers.
This module walks the whole project end to end: a full worked heat loss calculation (envelope conduction plus infiltration) driving a 10-unit-heater count, why HVLS destratification fans reduce heating energy in a 32 ft-tall space, the unit-heater-vs-radiant tradeoff at the loading dock, CO-sensor-staged makeup air ventilation for the propane forklift fleet, and the one small conditioned space — the office mezzanine — where conventional comfort cooling actually is used. The full worked numbers and complete bill of materials are part of the unlocked module below.