Key Maintenance Tips for Cooling Tower Users
Posted on: 16 May 2017
A cooling tower is a piece of equipment designed to recirculate water in order to cool the interiors of a building. It is part of the HVAC system in most modern buildings. Like with any other cooling equipment, routine maintenance of cooling towers is critical to ensuring that building occupants continue getting reliable cooling service.
Let's take a look at some of the things that building owners should do to ensure that their cooling towers remain in top operating shape.
Cooling tower inspection
Cooling towers comprise various components, including basins, fill, nozzles, cooling fans, motors and drains, which may get damaged in the course of normal operation. Routine inspection of cooling towers is required to ensure any elements that may lead to premature damage of parts are removed before they can compromise system efficiency. A buildup of scale on the basins within the cooling tower can lead to corrosion, for example. A regular inspection of cooling towers will reveal when it is time to remove scale from the basins as well as on other parts of the cooling tower system. Corrosion inhibitors will also need to be added to the water in the cooling tower so as to keep the water clean and prevent premature corrosion of the basins as time passes by. This way, maintenance technicians will be able to reduce the need to perform extensive repairs and/or make costly parts replacements.
Water treatment
The cold water introduced into cooling towers may contain various forms of bacteria that are harmful to human health. To find out if these bacterial micro-organisms are present in the water, microbiological testing should be carried out on a periodic basis. Your local council may recommend what types of harmful microbiological elements you should test for and at what intervals of time. It is best to have the tests performed at a local water testing laboratory by a qualified technician. If tests disclose that bacteria levels are too high, the water in your cooling tower will have to be professionally treated. Your technician will recommend what biocide you will need to destroy the detected bacteria.
If you rely on a cooling tower for cooling service all through summer, you should definitely have a maintenance plan for the HVAC equipment. The above-discussed cooling tower maintenance tips can help you keep water clean and extend the service life of your equipment, but also reduce your energy costs considerably.
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