Cooling That Keeps Pace With Operational Readiness
Personnel across Australia, whether training or deployed, face heat stress risk in the summer months, and in parts of the north and west, year-round, long before any emergency response is needed. Force preservation in these conditions depends on two things working properly at once: keeping people cool during routine activity, and keeping emergency water systems reliable when something goes wrong.
Heat Trap Solutions builds both. The Water Vest Chiller is a self-contained, portable unit that stores 50 litres of chilled water and circulates it to up to five water-cooled vests at once, delivering up to 60 litres of chilled water per hour per vest. Stored water sits at 8 degrees Celsius and can be adjusted down to 4 degrees for the hottest tasks. It runs from a standard single-phase power supply, needs no permanent plumbing, and moves on forklift guides between locations, which matters when the site itself changes.
The same discipline applies to emergency eyewash and safety showers. Australian Standard AS4775 sets a minimum 15 minute supply duration. The Australian Department of Defence’s own Emergency Eyewash and Shower Policy goes further, specifying flushing times of up to 60 minutes for penetrating corrosives and a minimum of 1500 litres of tepid water on tap for a combination eyewash shower. On a remote site, keeping that volume of water at a safe temperature through exposed above ground pipework in 40 plus degree heat is the harder engineering problem. Anti scald valves and scheduled flushing manage the symptom. Water sitting stagnant in a dead leg of pipe still overheats regardless of what valve sits at the end of it.
Heat Trap’s Flo-Thru eye/face wash safety shower removes the dead leg entirely, using continuous circulation so water never sits still long enough to overheat or breed bacteria such as Legionella, with UV sterilisation managing bacterial risk without chemical dosing. It has been tested for flow and conformance with AS4775 and is built and pressure tested at the company’s Osborne Park facility in Western Australia.
Both systems solve the same underlying problem: keeping water at a controlled temperature, moving, and available under pressure, in extreme heat and remote conditions. Heat Trap has spent over a decade doing this for mining and industrial clients across the Pilbara and Goldfields, work recognised with the inaugural WAITTA INCITE Industrial Technology Solution of the Year Award.
For project teams planning infrastructure or logistics for tropical postings and deployments, the two questions worth asking early are the same ones asked on a remote mine site: can personnel stay cool through a full day’s work, and will the safety shower actually deliver on what policy requires, not just on commissioning day but on the hottest day of the year, several years in.
Heat Trap Solutions is based in Osborne Park, Western Australia, and supplies circulated safety shower and personnel cooling systems to mining, industrial and Defence sites across the country.
To discuss a project, contact Heat Trap Solutions on 1300 722 715 or visit heat-trap.com.au.
Main image Flo-Thru safety shower installed on site, wide shot showing the full assembly.
