Behind the scenes // Plant room basics

Taking care of your Plant Room equipment is an important part of a functioning dental practice.

Over many hours, we have worked with dental technicians to provide the best possible solution for a functioning plant room to house your suction and compressor.

Below are five considerations for your next plant room.

Positioning

The position of the plant room is determined by the design and layout of the building. This will influence whether the plant room is internal, external or under-bench.
We always consider the sound and ease of access to the plant room. It is important to keep the room away from patient areas such as the reception, waiting and consult rooms. The services running to the plant room from the dental chairs is another important part that will govern where the plant room is situated in the practice.

Having the options of internal, external and under-bench plant rooms, allows us to have flexibility when designing dental practices. Here are some reasons behind the different plant room positions:

Internal Plant Room: keeps the function central in the practice, provides easy access, optimal to monitor equipment function, a dedicated space

External Plant Room (Plant Box): provides an optimal acoustic solution, allows more room in the practice, used when space is limited and an external position is available

Under Bench Plant Room: when the practice is tight, and an external plant room isn’t an option.

Acoustics

As we know, the sound made by the suction and compressor is not something to sit back and relax to, so we have come up with ways to beat the noise.

With the internal plant room, we layer the walls with as much sound insulation as possible – doubling down on plaster. Taking into consideration how sound travels, the insulation will continue into the ceiling. We also use a ceiling mounted light to reduce noise.

The external plant room does not need as much insulation as we use a durable fridge panel material, keeping plant box noise to a minimum.

The under-bench plant room requires more attention as more consideration into sound management is needed. Working with our cabinet makers, we have devised a way to keep the noise to a minimum by adding layers of sound insulation around the equipment.

We customise every plant room, utilising materials to ensure a quiet environment.

Keeping It Cool

A temperature-controlled environment will prolong the life of the suction and compressor equipment. Keeping a cool space is necessary to maintain equipment warranties. We install in-line exhaust fans to extract heat while the equipment is in use.

Constructed in a durable fridge panel, the external plant boxes are suited to the outdoor environment. To help regulate the temperature of the external plant box, the bases are slated to allow air to be sucked in, keeping the equipment cool.

The under-bench plant rooms, have the same in-line exhaust fans as the internal plant room and are installed to extract heat.

Easy Access

We always ensure the staff have easy access to the plant room and plant room switches. In case of an emergency, we install plant room master switches in convenient locations. This gives your staff peace of mind and the ability to act quickly if the equipment were to fail.

Room to Grow

As plant rooms are the hub for an optimal functioning dental practice, future proofing is important to consider. Knowing what your future plan is will help us when designing your plant room. Whether you are future proofing for a growing business or even having a redundancy plan (in case of a breakdown or fault), we can design the plant room to suit your current and future requirements.

Even though it’s a small space, there are many things to consider, which is why we pride ourselves on the research and commitment to improving areas within your practice, such as the plant room.