Most funeral homes have some sort of refrigeration unit designed to store bodies. If you have recently increased your volume of business, you may want to add a cool room in addition to or instead of your regular fridge. Here are several things to keep in mind as you search for the perfect cool room for your facility:

1. Remember ventilation.

In addition to refrigeration elements, your cool room also needs to be ventilated. Ventilation helps cut down on condensation. This can be critical if you are storing bodies prior to a viewing, because moisture can make their makeup run and ruin the work you have done.

2. Optimise space with built-in shelves, brackets or other storage solutions.

Ideally, you want to optimise the space in your cool room with storage solutions such as shelves or brackets that allow you to fit as many bodies into the room as possible. As a funeral director, you also need the ability to easily put heavy bodies into your cool room and easily pull them back out.

Brackets work perfectly for this purpose. Essentially, you roll a stretcher with a body on it into the cool room, and you position it next to the brackets. Then, you raise the stretcher as needed so that it is at the right height. Finally, you push a metal shelf off the stretcher and onto the brackets, and at the end of the task, the body is perfectly in place.

3. Consider a room within a room.

When you add a cool room to your funeral home, you don't have to sacrifice an entire room and make that your cool room. Instead, you can simply make a room within a room. This is the perfect solution if you have extra floor space in your embalming room.

To make a cool room that is a room within a room, you can invest in a kit and put it together yourself. Alternatively, you may hire professionals to build it for you. Essentially, they build it out of modular panels that snap together with tongue-and-groove seams.

4. Choose an area with a concrete floor.

When you add a cool room to your funeral home, you can build it directly onto your existing floor. However, for the room to function successfully, you want it to be a concrete floor. This way, you can easily cement the walls in place on the concrete floor and add sealants to keep air out. Unfortunately, carpet, tile and other flooring options don't work.

For more tips on choosing a cool room for a funeral home, contact a cool room installation expert.

Share