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Alan passed away late on Friday night, St David’s Day, at the Rondebosch Mediclinic. His children, Bryony and Graham were with him. His health deteriorated last October and surgery to remove a brain tumor was ultimately unsuccessful.   Alan John Moule was UK born in 1947. His father was Welsh and his mother, who lived to 99, had survived the London blitz. After finishing school in Cardiff and possessed with the romantic notion of being a game ranger, he left for Southern Africa and started working for Barclay’s Bank. After stints in Swaziland, Lesotho and Botswana, Alan joined GKN Shankey where he sold pallet racking and continued to do so with Universal Storage Systems, Dexion and ultimately for us at Barpro Storage where he spent his last five years.     Alan’s dedication was such that, even after surgery, he insisted on coming into the office although the wheel chair somewhat cramped his style. He was an elder statesman, providing advice, visiting customers, and even on one occasion shimming up rack frames at minus 25 degrees C. Alan called Barpro his family and enjoyed our love and respect. But there was much more to Alan than pallet racking. He was an excellent cook whose quiches always came out top in office competitions and his holy grail was to find the restaurant that made the best Eggs Benedict in the world. The current champion is apparently in Hobart, Tasmania, so every business breakfast included a critique as to how the current offering before him fell short. Alan was a master of that now somewhat rare art of conversation. His knowledge of just about everything stemmed from continuous reading and although a professed atheist, his knowledge of world religions was extensive. Almost Merlinian in character, Alan enjoyed writing short stories, avidly followed Game of Thrones and was a friend to bards and poets.   His equestrian activities were cut short by an Achilles’ tendon problem some years ago, but his affinity to dogs continued even though his Malamutes, Phantom, Sky and Shadow are long gone. Alan’s other passion was model building which was undertaken with an almost obsessive perfectionism. Barpro will continue to treasure his “Titanic”, shortly to find a permanent home in the boardroom.   Our thoughts are with his children, Bryony who lives in Dubai and Graham who lives south of Brisbane as well has his six dearly beloved grandchildren. Please reserve the afternoon of Friday, March 15th,  for a celebration of his colorful life at the Wild Fig restaurant in Observatory, Cape Town from 1:00 pm until 4:00pm. While Eggs Benedict will not be on the menu, you will be glad to know that Alan loved their crispy duck and will join us in spirit to participate in the conversation and share in the stories which I have neglected to mention.

The above repair was about 450mm at its widest wide 3000mm long and about 70mm deep, and required about 10 litres (18kg) of “Cold Patch”. The repair took about 40 minutes to effect and would have accepted traffic after about 2 to 3 hours. Temperature was minus 25 degrees Celsius.   “Cold Patch” when cured is hard but non-brittle and adheres strongly to most cementitious substrates. For more info please contact Gary at Construction Components on 011-393-6357 or visit their website www.construction-chemicals.co.za   An alternative cold store floor repairs to be done in-house, Barpro has limited stock of a cement based product called Febset 45 which acts as a repair agent for concrete slabs. This specially formulated solution reaches an adequate strength for traffic in less than an hour and can be used at -20 degrees Celcius although it must be correctly prepared and the instructions followed to the letter.  

Last week one of our technicians visited a client to inspect their mobile racking system. One of the items on our check list is to make sure that the heater mat, its cables and panel are working correctly.   The heater mat prevents water in the sub floor from freezing. “If ice forms under a freezer it pushes up the wearing slab and could negatively affect the operation of the mobiles. It is also very hard to reverse the process once there is ice under the floor. (Read more here) The functioning of the heater mat and the subfloor temperature should be checked and recorded weekly by cold store managers. Many time we’ve come across cold store personnel who don’t know where to find the heater mat control panel or what its purpose is. In this instance the heater mat panel and cables had just been removed.   If you’re a cold store manager unsure about whether your heater mat is functioning correctly or at all please contact Keith Bell of Cooltec on 076 441 5970 or cooltec@webafrica.org.za.             Cooltec are an independent cold store inspection company. With 40 years experience in most aspects of cold and freezer store construction as well as seven years in the quality conscious Middle Eastern market, Cooltec’s services also include checking the pressurisation of freezer rooms and thermal imaging. Read more about Cooltec here