August 12th, 2020 by Chris Chapman

Hygiene has never been more important than it is right now. Businesses are expected to meet the strictest hygiene standards to keep their staff and customers safe. This can add a whole new set of pressures for your business, so it makes sense that you might want to look for quick and easy ways to keep your workplace sanitary. One tool that fits this bill is known as a ULV fogger – if you haven’t heard of them before, we’ll explain what they are and how they work below!

ULV Foggers

A ULV fogger is a cold fogging machine. It uses large volumes of air at low pressure to convert a liquid into droplets that can then be dispersed into the atmosphere. ULV stands for ultra-low volume because of the low volume of fluid that is required to create enough fog to cover very large areas.

They can be used both indoors and outdoors depending on your application – they’re commonly used for applying pesticides over a field of crops, or for spraying disinfectant across a large, open room. Given the current global situation, they’re more commonly used for the latter.

How do ULV foggers work?

ULV foggers are not one-size-fits-all. There are many on the market, with each one being designed with different applications in mind. Some are static, designed to be placed on a flat surface and left alone. Others are portable, and you can carry them around in a similar fashion to a garden sprayer. You can even find massive, industrial ULVs which need to be mounted on a truck, although these are usually reserved for specialist industrial jobs.

In principle, though, they all work in a similar way. They use a blower, a tank, and a power source which drives the blower (this is usually electric, but can also be a petrol engine, too). The blower creates a small amount of pressure, which forces air through the nozzle. The air pressure can be adjusted by the controls on the machine. Your liquid of choice is delivered to the nozzle, which contains special fins that cause the air stream to swirl around. This motion separates the liquid into tiny droplets and then disperses it into the air.

The droplets produced are very small – so small, in fact, that they have to be measured in microns. Different droplet sizes are suitable for different applications and usually range from between 5 to 50 microns. Most foggers will let you adjust your droplet size. Smaller droplet sizes of less than 20 microns give what’s known as a “dry” fog – a mist so fine you might not even notice it’s there. This is better for covering very large areas. Sizes of 20 microns and above are better for disinfection, mould removal, intense pesticide treatments, and so on.

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Advantages of ULV foggers

The main advantage of ULV foggers is their ability to cover a very large area with only a small amount of pesticide or disinfectant. This makes them really cost-effective to use. They’re also great for sanitising very large spaces with lots of hard-to-reach nooks and crannies, like warehouses, gym halls, corridors, and more. These places can be difficult to sanitise thoroughly as you’ll have to manually wipe down every surface. A ULV fogger can disperse disinfectant into those tricky spots inside a few minutes, so it’s very efficient if you need to repeatedly clean a larger room.

Picking the Right Disinfectant

The need for effective disinfection has never been higher, not only in spaces like hospital wards but also in offices, schools and other public buildings. A ULV fogger, which can be used with many different disinfectants, can be a big cost and time saver. However, not all disinfectants are suitable to use in ULV fogging machines, so make sure you check this before you buy. Formulas such as the Pro-Kleen Y12D Surface Cleaner is compatible with any ULV fogger and offers a really efficient method of sanitising large, open spaces.