Category Archives: Cooling Towers

Proper cooling tower maintenance is the foundation for managing every HVAC system.  When systems are designed well and properly maintained they will offer occupants in residential, industrial, and commercial properties comfort all year long.  While this is the goal cooling towers are many times not given much attention until something is wrong.

The cooling tower is a critical element of a well-functioning HVAC system but will have problems without proper and regular maintenance.  The monolith cooling towers common at power plants are made from concrete require less maintenance than the smaller units common on industrial sites, commercial buildings, or large residential buildings.  Cooling towers are neglected many times simply because they are on the roof and difficult to repair or maintain.

Cooling Towers Are A Corrosive Environment

While large power plant cooling towers are typically made from concrete these smaller roof top units are made from galvanized steel.  Over time the hot and humid conditions in cooling towers leads to chemical attack and corrosion of the steel.  With air, heat, chemicals, and water coursing through the cooling tower as its primary function it isn’t surprising that it is an exceptionally corrosive environment.

Most Common Cooling Tower Problems

Various parts of the cooling tower are made from different materials and are exposed to varied degrees of heat, water, air, and chemicals.  So which are the most common cooling tower problems?  The key in maintaining equipment instead of paying to replace it is regular inspection.  Catching cooling tower maintenance issues while they are small preserve the condition of your cooling tower and reduce costs.

Chemical Attack & Corrosion

Cooling towers are a heat exchange device which functions by passing hot water and air by each other to cool the liquid.  This accompanied by the presence of chemicals which reduce dissolved solids adds up to an incredibly corrosive environment.  Even with the best made parts from select materials like galvanized steel corrosion is a real problem. Corrosion will lead to diminished performance and worse mean the cooling tower is unsafe.  Common areas which experience corrosion are seams and joints along with some parts like the holding pans, diffuser trays, and framework.  These repairs if not caught while small can add up to costly leaks and repairs.

Pipeline Corrosion

The pipelines that connect the HVAC system to the cooling tower are also susceptible to issues.  Internal and external conditions can cause the development of corrosion that lead to thin and through wall defects in pipes.  These issues or leaks impact the efficiency and overall performance of the HVAC system significantly.  One common issue is the paint systems designed to protect the cooling tower from corrosion.  These paints or coatings when not properly applied or not of the highest quality will not last as long or provide a durable cooling tower coating.  More than simply costly repair issues leaks along with heat and water provide the perfect environment to develop a Legionnaries’ disease outbreak.

Mechanical Failure & Damage

When inspections and maintenance are not done regularly or properly mechanical issues can mean excessive strain and wear on your cooling tower system.  Loose pulleys and fan hubs will end up scored and mean worn fan shafts.  When the mechanical components of your cooling tower are not well lubricated or maintained properly it will mean downtime and costly repairs.

Impingement Erosion

Dust particles and moisture commonly cause damage to the leading edge of the fan blades due to impingement.  This process causes erosion and corrosion of the fan blades that diminishes the efficiency of the entire system.  In extreme cases corrosion can be so advanced that there is no option but complete replacement.

Cooling Tower Corrosion Solution

Clearly corrosion is a major issue for cooling towers and needs to be addressed.  Ignoring the issue allows corrosion to fester and potentially go beyond mere repair and require replacement of parts, or worse the entire cooling tower.  Replacing a cooling tower is an overwhelmingly large expensive for any industrial or commercial property. Avoid this budget killer and invest in prevention with inspection, regular maintenance, and quality polymeric coating solutions.

Polymeric cooling tower coatings can be used to seal and protect pipework, restore and protect fan blades, rebuild mechanical components, and help prevent internal corrosion.

Phoenix Valley Cooling Tower Maintenance

If you have a residential, industrial, or commercial cooling tower that needs maintenance in the Phoenix Valley, All Kote Lining Inc. is here to help!  We inspect your cooling tower to catch potentially costly repair issues while they are small, offer affordable repairs, and provide long lasting durable corrosion protecting cooling tower coatings.  For more information about how our cooling tower maintenance services will help extend the life of your cooling tower and help you save on energy costs running it, call us today!

Cooling tower components include: Instrumentation and Electrical Systems, Cooling Tower Nozzles, Cooling Tower Valves, Mechanical Equipment Support, Drive Shafts, Gear Boxes, Cooling Tower Louvers, Fan Deck, Fan Cylinder, Water Distribution Piping, Cooling Tower Fans, Drift Eliminators, Cooling Tower Fill, Cooling Tower Structure, and Cold Water Basin.

Below we go over the individual cooling tower parts and functions.

List Of Cooling Tower Components:

• Instrumentation and Electrical Systems
• Cooling Tower Fan Motor
• Nozzles
• Distribution Valves
• Drive Shafts
• Gear Box
• Cooling Tower Louvers
• Fan Deck
• Fan Cylinder
• Water Distribution Piping
• Cooling Tower Fans
• Cooling Tower Structure
• Cold Water Basin
• Drift Eliminators
• Cooling Tower Fill Media
• Mechanical Equipment Support

Cooling Tower Parts & Functions

Cooling Tower Instrumentation:

Instrumentation systems found in most cooling towers include Blow Down Rate, Flow Meters For Cooling Tower Makeup Water, Thermocouples for Cold & Hot Water Measurement Of Temperature, Water Level Switches For Cold & Hot Water Basins, Low & High Oil Level Switches, and Vibration Switches.

Cooling Tower Fan Motor:

Refinery & Petrochemical cooling tower applications require explosion proof fan motors due to the potentially leaky heat exchangers. Fan motors should be provided with over load relay and Earth fault relay protection systems.

Cooling Tower Nozzles:

Most cooling tower nozzles are made out of plastic. These plastics include glassfilled nylon, polypropylene, ABS, and PVC plastics. Nozzles allow for uniform distribution of the hot water that’s inside a cooling tower cell.

Distribution Valves:

Distribution Valves are a part of the cooling tower that regulates the flow of hot water to evenly distribute in cells. The valve body in a distribution valve is manufactured to stand up to corrosive environments.

Drive shafts:

Drive shafts transmit power the from the motor’s output shaft to the gear reduction unit’s input shaft.

Gear Box:

Gear boxes reduce the amount of speed depending on your cooling tower fan’s requirements. The torque tube permanently alights the gear reducer, driveshaft, and motor.

Cooling Tower Louvers:

Asbestos sheets are what cooling tower louvers are made out of. Louvers serve 2 purposes:  1. Retain the circulating water within a cooling tower. 2. Distribute air flow equally into the fill media.

Fan Cylinder & Fan Deck:

The fan deck is simply a supporting platform for the fan cylinders and also creates an access way to the water distributions system and fan.

Water Distribution Piping:

Water distribution piping requires burial underground or needs to be supported in ground to avoid thrust loading of the cooling tower due to water pressure in the pipe and self weight.

Cooling Tower Fans:

Cooling tower fans are one the major parts/components of cooling towers. Most cooling tower fans are made out of hot-dipped galvanized steel, Glass Fiber, (FRP) Fiber Reinforced Plastic, and Aluminum. FRP is one of the best options because it is light weight and reduces the energy requirements (energy consumption) of the cooling tower fan. Pinch blade angles of cooling tower fan blades are varied depending on the season. For example, the pinch angle is increases during the summer season when the density is low to increase the capacity of the fan.

Cooling Tower Structure:

The most common cooling tower structure is made up of Wood (Chemically Treated). Although, some newer cooling towers are being manufactured using FRP and Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) depending on the application the cooling tower is need for.

Cold Water Basin:

Cold water basins serve two functions and are normally manufactured using RCC. The first function of a cold water basin is to act as storage and collect cold water from the tower. The second function of a cold water basin is the provide the main structure and foundation for the cooling tower itself. Cold water basins usually lye below ground level or on top of the soil. Cooling tower height is found my measuring the distance between the fan assembly to the top of the water basin.

Drift Eliminators:

Eliminators reduce the amount of water that escapes into the discharge air in the cooling tower.  They project air in multiple directions and prevent unnecessary loss of water. These drift eliminators are manufactured using PVC. More passes through the drift eliminator will decrease the amount of drift loss while also increasing the pressure drop which increases the fan power consumption. For larger industrial applications, some use heavy duty drift eliminators.

Cooling Tower Fill Media:

Cooling tower fill media puts as much air in contact with as much water surface area as possible. The film fills make the water form in thing flowing sheets so that the most amount of water surface area interacts with the flow of air. Fill media is manufactured using either wood, polypropylene, or PVC. There are three different types of fill media including: Vertical fill (Splash Fill), Vertical offset fill (Splash Fill), and cross corrugated fill (Film Fill).

Thank you for reading our “Cooling Tower Components” list. Stay tuned for more from the experts at All Kote Lining Inc.

If you’re searching for “cooling tower replacement cost” you’re facing a costly proposition.  The majority of cooling tower manufacturers say the average life span of a commercial cooling tower is about 15 to 20 years.

After 20 years the cooling towers need to be replaced or rebuilt.  That means commercial spaces built before the year 2000 have cooling towers that need to be replaced or rebuilt.  Commercial property owners can save thousands of dollars having cooling tower refurbishment instead of breaking the bank replacing them.  Read more about the cost of replacing cooling towers below.

Cooling Tower Replacement Cost

The cost of cooling tower replacement is about $50,000 per 200-ton cooling tower.  Large commercial spaces will use more than one of these 200-ton cooling towers so the cost of replacing the cooling tower system can easily reach $200,000 for the units, labor, and crane to lift them into place.

Replacement Cost Per Ton

Cooling towers are rated on how much air they can process in tons.  The replacement cost per ton depends on the brand of cooling tower, size, and any options for water treatment and epoxy coatings.  The larger the cooling tower the more they cost to buy, transport, and have craned onto a roof.  Property owners who already own cooling tower equipment can save an incredible amount of money by refurbishing cooling towers instead of replacing.

Cooling Tower Refurbishment Cost

All Kote Lining Inc. can restore your aging cooling towers and make them like new for a faction of the cost!  Depending on the size of the cooling tower system we can save commercial property owners literally tens of thousands of dollars over cooling tower replacement costs.

For the same type of 4-unit 200-ton cooling tower system refurbishment will cost around $80,000.  That is a $120,000-dollar saving!  And many times, the cost of cooling tower refurbishment isn’t classified as repairs instead of capital equipment.  This can mean some property owners will be able to get funding for the refurbishment.

Phoenix Valley Cooling Tower Refurbishment

If you own a commercial property and your cooling towers have reached the end of their lifespan All Kote Lining Inc. can save you thousands of dollars.  Our team offers complete cooling tower refurbishment that will save your company tens of thousands of dollars over buying and installing new cooling towers.  Cooling tower refurbishment adds about another 15 years of life to your equipment and helps you get your money’s worth out of your original investment in your cooling tower or property.

Should you choose to ignore your cooling tower’s operating condition for an extended amount of time it can prove to be detrimental, costing a lot more in the long run to have it fixed. If your cooling tower looks good, then chances are that it is no longer working well either and you need to have it checked out by a team of professional specialists and get it back to its optimal operating condition, whether it is in need of being repaired or restored.

Cooling Tower Repair Benefits

Here at All Kote, we are considered to be industry leaders and we remain as the forefront in our sector because we provide you with practical solutions to all issues related to cooling towers. Below we will be looking at several of the benefits of cooling tower repair and maintenance.

Health

There can be significant health risks involved when a cooling tower is left to corrode and deteriorate. Cases have been known where a tower that was coated with epoxy or a powder coating caused the internal steel substrates to start corroding, which created a micro aquatic bacterial growth.

This is something that can cause Pseudomonas, Legionella, and Biofilm, which can create severe problems to the health of those in the vicinity of that tower.

Durability

Anytime we carry out repair work to your cooling tower, we always make certain that we leave its structure in its best possible condition, ensuring it remains durable, as well as resilient for future use. We leave your tower protected from an attack of bacteria and capable to handle high levels of chemical resistance and impacts because we apply our own unique coating system of urethane which is an anti-corrosion material.

Cost-Effectiveness

If our team of professionals carry out the repairing of your cooling tower it will reduce the number of repairs, it is going to need in the future. Many towers face an ongoing problem that consists of the mastic in between the joints, and this is prone to getting chemical attacks, and losing its much-needed elasticity over a period of time. When this is left untreated it causes the structure to start leaking, and turning into a very disastrous situation for you to have to manage.”

Future Maintenance

We can prevent the leaking of chemicals and water coming from the mastic/joints by using our special repair techniques and coatings, ensuring that your tower has been left with an easy to clean finish for your convenience in keeping your tower at its optimal condition, having the benefit of less downtime. Our expert repairs to cooling towers has been proved to be beneficial countless times. We are a highly experienced company with the ability to continue ensuring the work, the efficiency, and the excellent condition of your cooling towers to have a long-term future, subsequently, also ensuring the peace of mind of all of our clients.

Phoenix Valley Cooling Tower Repair Service

If you’re looking for the best cooling tower repair and refurbishment, All Kote Lining Inc. is here to serve you.  Cooling towers are expensive investments in your commercial or industrial properties and should last as long as humanly possible.  Taking care of the cooling tower through regular maintenance and refurbishment is the key to getting the maximum amount of years from your equipment and saving money.  Our services save you money in making the equipment last longer and use less energy.  For more information about how our team can help repair and maintain your cooling towers in the Phoenix Valley please call 480-966-4446.

Controlling biofilm in cooling towers is the priority of any property owner.  Biofilm robs your system of it’s efficiency and left unchecked can lead to the development of bacteria. Other than the specter of MIC eating on the metallic parts of your cooling system, aggregations of biofilms additionally repress heat transfer in the condenser tubes and can gather on cooling tower fill to the point where it can crumple the fill support and make serious damage to the cooling tower.

How To Control Biolfilm

The way to keep up control over microbiological populaces in power plant cooling water is to give a steady level of treatment consistently. That is, the treatment should be reliably powerful. The real convergences of biocide required to give this level of treatment may change essentially, contingent upon cooling water conditions and nature.

Some power plants find that they can stun treat the cooling water system for an hour daily amid the greater part of the year and slice back to a few times per week amid the winter while still appropriately controlling biofouling in their system. Other power plants do not just require every day or even consistent bolster of dye, yet additionally need to include extra nonoxidizing biocides amid the midyear months.

Oxidizing Biocide

The most widely recognized strategy for establishing that you are adding adequate oxidizing biocide to control microbiological fouling is the free chlorine test. This is a base and ought to be performed amid every chlorination cycle, or day by day for those that ceaselessly chlorinate. As conditions change the measure of blanch required to create the coveted free accessible chlorine leftover will change, and the plant ought to react by expanding or diminishing the biocide nourish rate likewise. Note that oxidation diminishment potential (ORP) isn’t a decent sign of microbiological control in cooling water. ORP is not a viable replacement for testing free accessible chlorine.

The Role of Chlorine

Getting the Full Benefit from Chlorine. A full exchange of the different sorts of biocides and advancing methodologies for their utilization is past the extent of this article. In any case, it is great to say a couple of words in regards to the most widely recognized biocide utilized as a part of energy plants: chlorine.

Already, the most widely recognized wellspring of chlorine was chlorine gas delivered to control plants as a dense fluid in 1-ton chambers. It was dissipated and cleared into the cooling water lines as a gas. At the point when chlorine gas broke down in water, it shaped hydrochloric corrosive and hypochlorous corrosive. The hydrochloric corrosive brought down the cooling water pH somewhat, which improved the impact of hypochlorous corrosive as a biocide. Evident worries about security were the essential reason that power plants moved far from the utilization of 1-ton chlorine barrels to sodium hypochlorite commercial bleach conveyance.

Commercial bleach can be commonly provided at 10% or 12.5% chlorine. 1 lb of chlorine gas will make 0.74 lb of hypochlorousacid, while 1 gallon of 12.5% bleach can possibly create 0.875 pounds of hypochlorous acid, if there is adequate hydrogen particle in the cooling water to shape the acid.

Commercial bleach is produced by gurgling chlorine gas into a scathing arrangement. Some additional scathing intentionally stays in the sanitizer to moderate the decay of hypochlorite to chlorates. The run of the mill pH of commercial bleach is near 11.5 and 13.5. Bleach arrangements that have a pH of 11 or less deteriorate quickly.

So the use of chlorine gas when compared to the use of bleach has the potential to increase the pH of cooling water. It has been stated that hypochlorous acid is more effective as a biocide than the hypochlorite ion. Thus, bleach loses its activity as a biocide in high pH cooling waters.

Sodium Hypochlorite Solutions

Sodium hypochlorite solutions will begin to decompose the minute they are created. They decompose along with 2 chemical pathways: by forming chlorate and by releasing oxygen. In quality hypochlorite solutions, the formation of chlorate is the main pathway. A variety of factors may accelerate the decomposition of bleach. The most critical are exposure to UV radiation, concentration, temperature, and time.

• Bleach will decompose over time. It is calculated that 90F storage, a 10% bleach solution will lose half of the effective hypochlorite concentration in 95 days. You may use a tank of bleach in a few weeks, you may want to ask the supplier how long it has been in storage before arriving at your facility.
• In just 60 days at 68F storage, bleach will lose 17% of the hypochlorite, where at 90F it will lose 55%. The temperature needs to be a consideration in placing a hypochlorite storage tank.
• UV Radiation. UV rays from sunlight can decompose bleach solutions. Your bleach tanks need to be made from UV resistant materials or coated in a way that it will exclude UV light or place them inside.
• The more concentrated the bleach solution is, the faster it will decompose. If your site is not a big bleach use, it may be best to stick with a 10% bleach solution instead of a higher concentration.

Other factors that will have an effect on the decomposition rate will include concentration of chlorides, and transition metals that may get into the bleach from caustic that was used in the manufacture or in the piping and tank materials where the bleach is stored. The nickel level in bleach needs to be less than 0.1 mg per 1 and copper needs to be less than 1 mg per 1.

Testing Bulk Chemicals

It is essential to test Bulk Chemicals. It becomes the chemistry personnel to check the hypochlorite concentration in every shipment of blanch before it is offloaded into their tank. One plant addressed why it was all of a sudden not accomplishing a free accessible chlorine remaining in its cooling water, as it had previously. A check of the detergent mass tank found that the fixation in the tank was just 2.5% dye. Clearly, the past dye conveyance was not the 10% dye the provider asserted it was. Basic hypochlorite test packs are accessible for this reason.

Avoid Bromine in Towers

Bromine Is Not a Biocide. At times I hear individuals alluding to their cooling water science as “bromine” science. Bromine is a rosy dark colored gas and exceptionally lethal (like its neighbor in the intermittent table—chlorine gas). Isn’t something that ought to ever be created at a power plant. The utilization of sodium bromide to improve the biocidal properties of blanch at higher cooling water pH esteems, in any case, is extremely normal.

It is vital to remember that sodium bromide isn’t a biocide. It is a simple salt that has no biocidal properties. It will only have them it has reacted with hypochlorous acid properly and not bleach that will form the hypobromous acid, which will be the desired biocide.

Stabilized hypobromous acid is also available at various chemical vendors. This helps to eliminate the need to mix sodium bromide and bleach on site. However,it will be more expensive to purchase the stabilized hypobromous acid than to make it.

Cooling Tower Maintenance & Repair

If you own or operate a facility in the Phoenix Valley that needs cooling tower maintenance or repair we can help!  All Kote Lining, Inc. specializes in cooling tower repair and refurbishment.   A big part of cooling tower maintenance is controlling and removing biofilm.  If you’ve got a cooling tower that needs some attention, give us a call. We also provide chiller repair & maintenance and tank coating services.

Call today to schedule an appointment – 480-966-4446

Cooling towers are an integral part of operations for many commercial and industrial facilities.  If a cooling tower is lost, it will likely have a significant impact on the operation of the facility.  Cooling tower fire protection is an important part of managing a large commercial or industrial operation.

Cooling Towers & Materials

Many industrial processes are not possible without the cooling that cooling towers provide.  A cooling tower, as many of us know, is to transfer heat from one medium to another.  Much like a motor and a radiator in a vehicle an industrial process that produces heat will need to be cooled.  Depending on the application you will find all sorts of designs, sizes, and materials used in the fabrication of cooling towers.  The largest cooling towers are found in nuclear power plants and are monoliths.

Cooling Tower Fabrication

Cooling towers are made from a number of materials such as metal frames, metal parts, plastic fill, and wood.  The cooling tower itself or the fill media that is used to maximize air and water contact can be flammable. Depending on the materials it is possible for the dry areas in a cooling tower to be exceptionally flammable.  This might surprise people with the quantity of water cooling towers typically handle.

Mitigating Fire Hazards in Cooling Towers

Clearly there is a risk of fire in a cooling tower so taking proactive preventative steps is important.  It is a best practice if the cooling towers can be located a distance from combustible materials or structures.  Cooling towers should be designed with fire barriers to help prevent fire from spreading through the tower and into the buildings.

It is critical that there are firefighting appliances like standpipes and fire hydrants be installed close to the cooling tower.  Cooling towers also present a potential lightning risk with the metal used in their fabrication and parts.  For this reason cooling towers should be provided with lightning protection.  For more information refer to NFPA 214 Standard on Water-Cooling Towers.

FRP Cooling Tower Fire Protection

With the emergence and popularity operators and manufacturers of fiber-reinforced plastics cooling towers a segment of the industry has become convinced that these towers don’t need fire suppression. Manufactures believe the materials they fabricate the towers from are noncombustible and have no need of an automatic sprinkler system. Many of today’s FRP cooling tower manufacturers state their fill materials and towers have been evaluated to be within codes such as the ASTM E84, this is no guarantee that they are non-combustible. It’s important to realized that the ASTM E 84 does not classify materials heat release rate or combustibility.

FRP Cooling Tower Fire Testing

The only way to know for sure if a automatic sprinkler system is needed is the Factory Mural Research Approval for the tower.  This means that unless the materials and fill are made from masonry, concrete, metal, or tile or have otherwise been proven to be noncombustible they should be treated as combustible.  Following that logic all FRP cooling towers made from materials that are no definitively noncombustible will need automatic sprinkler protection to mitigate the risk of fire in the tower.

The Importance of Cooling Tower Fire Protection

Not assessing or ignoring potential fire hazards is an unnecessary risk in any building, whether it be commercial, industrial, or residential.   If you have substandard fire protection it is a lose-lose situation.  While installing and operating a cheaper cooling tower which doesn’t feature fire mitigation systems might save a few dollar in the short term, it will cost in the long term.

At best the higher insurance premiums will offset any savings from not installing the fire control systems.  And worst the lives of your personnel will be at risk, along with the property itself.  Replacing, rebuilding, and downtime are enormously costly for just about every industrial or commercial facility.  Invest in protecting your cooling tower from fire hazards and have the peace of mind that your cooling tower is not a liability.   For help with all your cooling tower maintenance needs in the Phoenix Valley contact All Kote Lining, Inc.