Illinois Food Cleanroom HVAC · October 8, 2026
Joliet: measure the dock curtain, not a guessed pascal
You have a cold packaging room in Joliet opening onto a dock, and warm wet air wants in. Will County’s October 2024 food-establishment ordinance adopts the Illinois Food Code, 77 Ill. Admin. Code 750, plus a short list of FDA Food Code 2022 sections about variances and HACCP plans. It does not print a room-to-dock pressure in pascals, and it does not contain a custom “pressure cascade” chapter.
The number that is local sits in the county construction guide posted by the health department: an overhead air curtain on a vertically opening garage-type delivery door, minimum velocity 750 feet per minute measured 3 feet above the floor. The same 750 feet per minute, at 3 feet, is written for automatic sliding customer doors. We read that guide on October 8, 2026. It is a 2012 guide still posted on the department site. Say the date out loud before you treat it as the only sheet a plan reviewer will use.
DuPage County’s 2025 manual requires an approved air curtain and an automatic switch, and it does not print 750 feet per minute. That gap is why Joliet is its own page. NSF/ANSI 37, in the AMCA summary, is a different velocity again. Do not average the two documents.
- The citable local velocity is 750 feet per minute at 3 feet above the floor, from the Will County construction guide, for the doors that guide names.
- The 2024 ordinance does not publish a pascal differential between a cold room and a dock. If you have a number, it came from your design, not from that PDF.
- A USDA-inspected meat plant is not automatically a Will County food establishment. Read jurisdiction before you pay the county fee table.
| Who | When they are in the job | When they are not |
|---|---|---|
| Will County Health Department | Food establishments and retail stores the ordinance covers | Not automatically a USDA meat plant |
| FSIS inspection personnel | Official meat, poultry, or egg establishments, under 9 CFR 416 | Not the county curtain worksheet |
| You | You own the pressure you design, because the county did not print one | Not free to ignore 750 ft/min where the guide applies |
What the rule says here
The ordinance we are using is the Food Establishment Sanitation Ordinance of October 2024. It adopts 77 Ill. Admin. Code 750 and FDA Food Code 2022 sections 8-103.10, 8-103.11, 8-103.12, 8-201.13, and 8-201.14. Outer-opening protection arrives because the Illinois Food Code carries the FDA outer-opening idea, not because this ordinance retyped a velocity.
The velocity is in the construction guide. Quote it for garage-type delivery doors and for automatic sliding doors. Do not stretch it, without asking the department, onto a hinged man door that the guide says must be self-closing and tight-fitting instead.
The neighbor document is the DuPage 2025 construction manual, section 11.1. It wants the curtain and the automatic switch, then tells you to call plan review. The AMCA air-curtain note is where the 1,600 and 600 feet-per-minute NSF 37 figures are summarized. Use it so you do not buy a customer-door curtain for a dock and call it done. If the room is a USDA meat or poultry establishment, 9 CFR 416.2(d) is the ventilation rule FSIS will actually stand under, and the county fee table may not be your permit.
If you skip it
Skip the curtain and the dock becomes a chimney. Warm air hits the cold pack, you grow frost, then drip, then a wet floor in a room you are trying to keep clean. The construction guide’s reason is pests: insects and rodents through a door that stays open. The frost is the building-physics consequence. Both can shut a customer audit even when the county is not your inspector.
Skip jurisdiction and you will cite the wrong person. A USDA meat plant is not automatically a Will County food establishment. Section 114.999’s fine, up to $500 a day, is not an FSIS noncompliance record.
How the next place differs
| Document | Dock or service opening | Velocity printed |
|---|---|---|
| Will County construction guide | Garage delivery door and automatic sliders | 750 ft/min at 3 ft above the floor |
| DuPage 2025 manual, section 11.1 | Non-self-closing roller and sliding openings | None. Call plan review |
| NSF/ANSI 37 via the AMCA summary | Service entrance versus customer entrance | About 1,600 ft/min service, about 600 customer, at 3 ft |
Checklist for this job
Measure the curtain at 3 feet above the floor, across the opening, not at the nozzle.
Separate hinged man doors (self-closing, tight) from garage doors (curtain in the guide).
Write down the pack-room-to-dock pressure you measured. Label it as your reading. The ordinance did not supply it.
Decide whether Will County permits this building. If FSIS has the grant, say so before you use Appendix A.
Do not spec 750 ft/min and 1,600 ft/min as if they were the same rule.
Dairy ceiling drip in Champaign is the other note. Do not mix the books.
Fee or timeline in the document
Appendix A of the October 2024 ordinance is a real fee table, and it varies by seats or by square feet. Examples we read: a retail food store under 250 square feet of prepackaged time/temperature-control food at $264; 10,001 square feet and over at $876; plan review for that largest retail store at $630; priority plan review at double, with a 7-day response. Government, schools, churches, and temples pay half of the applicable fees on the lines that say so. None of those rows is captioned “cold-storage cleanroom.”
If your building is not a food establishment or retail food store under this ordinance, the table does not set your price. Say that in the budget. The guide’s velocity is not a fee. There is no published “one-day audit fee” in the pages we read. Section 114.075 is plan review. The doubled priority fee is the closest timeline the ordinance prints.
Questions people type
The October 2024 ordinance does not print one. Hold the packaging room positive to the dock if that is your design, and be ready to show the reading, but do not claim Will County published the pascals. The published local number is the air-curtain velocity in the construction guide.
The posted construction guide says 750 feet per minute measured 3 feet above the floor for vertically opening garage-type delivery doors, and the same velocity for automatic sliding customer doors. Windows in that guide use 750 feet per minute at the far side of the opening. Confirm the reviewer still uses this 2012 guide before you buy the fan.
The 2024 ordinance adopts the Illinois Food Code and five named FDA Food Code 2022 sections in chapter 8. It does not, in the copy we read, insert section 6-202.11 by number. Outer openings are still part of the food code the county adopted by reference. The velocity is in the construction guide, not in that adoption paragraph.
DuPage’s 2025 manual requires an approved air curtain that switches on with the door, and it tells you to talk to plan review during design. It does not give you 750 feet per minute to argue about. If your spec set was copied from a DuPage job, it is incomplete for a Will County reviewer who still uses the construction guide.
Related
References
- Will County Health Department. “Food Establishment Sanitation Ordinance,” October 2024, including Appendix A fees. Accessed October 8, 2026. willcountyhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/
- Will County Health Department. Construction guide, air-curtain velocity of 750 feet per minute at 3 feet. Posted 2019, guide dated 2012. Accessed October 8, 2026. willcountyhealth.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/
- DuPage County Health Department. “Food Service Construction and Design Manual,” 2025, section 11.1. Accessed October 8, 2026. www.dupagehealth.org/DocumentCenter/View/9939/Fo
- AMCA. “Air Curtain Technology,” summary of NSF/ANSI 37 velocities. Accessed October 8, 2026. www.amca.org/assets/resources/public/assets/uplo
How to cite this page
Illinois Food Cleanroom HVAC. (2026). Joliet: measure the dock curtain, not a guessed pascal. https://illinoisfoodcleanr.xyz/joliet-cold-storage-cleanroom-pressure-cascade
Byline: Illinois Food Cleanroom HVAC.