As the summer heats up Rayflex go into overdrive making and manufacturing Fly Screens and Insect Barriers. We utilise various types of materials to ensure that we can manufacture the right fly screen solution for your unique application. It’s time to prepare your kitchens, bars, shops and restaurants UK wide, cover your open doorways with our fantastic insect curtains!

Our mesh lightweight, mesh strips available in black or grey come as standard with weighted bottoms to ensure they don’t flap around in the wind. These are stylish mesh covers are designed to aid open kitchens and food production environments that desperately need fresh air circulating. The mesh strips allow hands-free access through doorways and remove the hassle of health and safety concerns that come with flies, insects and bugs buzzing around and contaminating food produce.

Our fly screens and insect curtains are used extensively in hot, busy, environments like in commercial kitchens, restaurants, bakeries, and cafes. Workspaces that generate a lot of heat, which is only made worse during the hot summer months. Fly screens and insect barriers work exceptionally well in these environments as they allow the workers to keep doors open, but due to the small holes in the mesh strip, there’s a steady stream of air passing through. These holes aren’t large enough to allow pests to pass through which promotes a hygienic work environment without having to sacrifice the comfort of the workers.

Mesh Strip

As you can see in the image above, the holes in the mesh are very very small and will not allow pests to pass through. Mesh strip improve the overall hygiene of the environment. Each kit comes with the appropriate amount of strips, a suspension rail and fitting instructions.

1000mm W x 2350mm H:
6 x fly mesh strips – plated to suit the hook type rail system
1 x 1230mm hook type stainless steel suspension rail

1300mm W x 2350mm H:
8 x fly mesh strips – plated to suit the hook type rail system
1 x 1475mm hook type stainless steel suspension rail

1600mm W x 2350mm H:
10 x fly mesh strips – plated to suit the hook type rail system
2 x 984mm hook type stainless steel suspension rail

1800mm W x 2350mm H:
11 x fly mesh strips – plated to suit the hook type rail system
2 x 984mm hook type stainless steel suspension rail

If you are interested in our fly screen and insect barrier range, please visit our insect barrier page, contact our sales team on 01925 638753 or email sales@pvc-strip.co.uk.

On hot days, customers want to walk into newsagents, shops, bars, cafés or restaurants, go straight to your fridges and pick out a cold drink, sandwich, salad or snack. Imagine the disappointment for your customers that when they finally choose their product, it’s warm and in unsatisfactory condition. Did you know that up to 40% of customers just don’t buy warm drinks or food items? They’d rather go without or worse, go next door to your competitors!

This poses you with a problem – how do you display your goods, keep your energy consumption down and showcase your product offerings in multi-deck chillers whilst keeping your products cold?  The answer is simple: install an inexpensive PVC chiller blind.  The PVC is crystal clear so your customer can see into the fridge, the PVC strips are lightweight enough for your customers to simply reach through and grab the cold product they desire – you get to keep all your customers happy and save a fortune in energy in the process.

BUT ARE THEY A WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT?

YES!  The ROI is extremely fast, typically you will save up to 50% on fridge energy consumption, and they will pay for themselves within a few months. They optimise airflow evenly within the cabinet ensuring you have minimum product wastage. They also extend the life of your retail unit by lessening the load on the compressor.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER BENEFITS TO INSTALLING PVC CHILLER BLINDS?

Yes! They are extremely easy to self-install, maintain and clean. Our clever support system allows the full curtain section to clip in and out which also ensures you can restock your fridges with ease.  They do also help to deter petty theft – it’s not as easy to slip items into pockets when there is a PVC chiller blind in the way!

WHAT OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE? 

Colour: Clear / transparent (light blue tint)
PVC profile: Flat
Grade: Standard Temperature PVC strip
Width range: 100mm
Thickness range: 1mm (please note we offer 1.2mm and 2mm if required)
UV stable: Yes.
Temperature range: +50°c to -15°c (PVC can degrade at the extremities of this range).  If you require a PVC chiller blind to be made from low-temperature PVC (+30 / -40°c) then this is possible, we use 100mm w x 2mm thick freezer grade PVC material in this instance.

Our PVC strips are 100mm wide and we sell only PVC chiller blinds to the nearest incremental width.  For example, if your fridge is 1290mm wide we would supply 12 x 100mm – it is not possible to infill the remaining 90mm of space, you would have a small gap at either side.  The PVC chiller blinds are designed to cover off the majority of your opening to ensure enhanced energy savings.

Our standard sizes include:

1200mm W x 1500mm H
1800mm W x 1500mm H
2400mm W x 1500mm H
3000mm W x 1500mm H
3600mm W x 1500mm H
1200mm W x 3000mm H
1800mm W x 3000mm H
2400mm W x 3000mm H
3000mm W x 3000mm H
3600mm W x 3000mm H

Our PVC chiller blinds come in the above pre-made standard sizes are available to buy online (not on next day delivery) or if your fridge sizes are unusual then please call us on 01925 638753 or email sales@pvc-strip.co.uk.

Are you clueless on PVC Strip and unsure on how the technical specifications will affect your application? We simplify the specs and help you discover your ideal curtain…

Temperature Range:

PVC strip has a large temperature range for such a flexible product.  The temperature range is simply the range at which the PVC strip will maintain its structure.  At temperatures lower than specified the molecules will react together becoming hard, brittle and the clarity will alter.  At the higher end of the spectrum, the material will deform, lose its shape, and basically melt. Here’s our guide to the minimum and maximum usage temperatures on quality PVC strip:

Standard Grade PVC: -15°C – +50°C
Low Temperature / Polar Grade PVC: +30°C – -40°C  

Chemical Resistance

We are often asked, “is flexible PVC strip chemical resistant?” The answer is a resounding yes!  PVC strip has good mechanical properties and excellent chemical resistance, as with other general-purpose plastics.  It’s particularly good with organic solvents, salts, acids, and alkalis. This is why it’s used to make chemical storage tanks, plastic valves and flanges, drainage, and water pipes.  However, if you want to understand how it behaves in relation to a specific chemical within a given environment then it needs to be independently tested.

We can send you samples to test in your actual environment or for more technical results we can send our materials to independent Laboratories on your behalf.  Bear in mind independently testing is costly and the customer bears the cost for any external test requirements but it will ensure that you’ve got bespoke, application-specific test results for your unique environment.

Tensile Strength

So, you have a flexible PVC strip technical specification in front of you, you know that you need a strong material but you have no idea what that means or what to look for in quality grade PVC.  Here we break it down into simple terms and explain the basics of tensile strength.

The tensile strength of a material is measured in N/mm². This is the maximum force the PVC strip can be subjected to before it breaks. Good quality PVC strip should achieve results between 10 and 18 (the stronger the PVC the higher the number).

• Standard grades should be around 16-17;
• Low-temperature grades should be around 12-13;
• Super polar grades should be around 10;

Low-temperature grades include added softeners in the PVC compound mix to avoid the material becoming brittle at freezing temperatures, hence the lower figures.

Heat distortion

To simplify what is actually quite a complex test, the Vicat softening temperature or heat distortion temperature is basically how far a needle can penetrate into flexible PVC strip, to a specific depth at given temperature variables. The higher the temperature the easier it is for the needle to penetrate the PVC strip.

PVC strip is at a disadvantage when it comes to having a low heat distortion level if you compare it to other plastics, however, this is due to its high levels of flexibility and requirements to be a soft, moveable material.

Ideally, you want this score to be between 45-50, the higher the score the more rigid the material will be.

Fire Retardant

PVC strip is an inherently fire resistant plastic as it contains a high percentage of chlorine.  Make no mistake, all PVC will burn (as do almost all materials) but when burned, hydrogen chloride gas is released which slows down the continuous combustion reaction and when the naked flame is removed it will self-extinguish – the material basically chokes itself.  Additionally, the odour released is unpleasant allowing early detection of a fire.

There are many ways of evaluating flexible PVC strip, all PVC strip should be as minimum classified as “self-extinguishing” but the oxygen index is a good line in the sand – the higher the value the better.  Materials that achieve OI ratings of 26+ are as near to a true fire retardant PVC material as you’re going to get in the PVC world.

If would like to view our independent testing video showing the behaviour of standard grade and OI27 PVC strip where you can see which PVC takes the flame and burns quicker for yourselves – then please just ask and we can send it over to you via email.