Chiller Maintenance: Common Problems & Repairs
Chillers are usually the largest energy consuming element in most office building and industrial facilities. In fact in a lot of situations the chiller is responsible for over 50% of the electricity consumption. Being the largest energy user in your operation addressing and repairing common problems can mean big savings in utility costs.
In our homes we rarely look at our heating or air conditioning units until the simply are not working, and it seems a lot of commercial and industrial properties wait for something to fail as well. Chillers that are either maintained inefficiently or not correctly mean higher energy use, higher bills, and reduced equipment life.
5 Common Chiller Efficiency Killers
While there are more than just 5 reasons chillers could be having efficiency issues there are 5 that come up more often than others. These efficiency killers are: deficient operating practices, deferred or ignored maintenance, oversizing, ignoring cooling tower maintenance, and ignoring alternative-fuel chillers. Each of these different issues can mean very real and significant diminished chiller performance yet can be prevented and corrected with proper maintenance and repairs.
Deficient Operating Practices
When chillers operating practices are not up to par it means reduced efficiency, greater energy use, and ultimately reduced chiller life. This occurs in two basic scenarios, when a chiller is forced to go beyond its design specifications, or through the actions of untrained operators.
A very common situation in chillers is when more coolant is needed and the flow rate is simply increased past the manufacturers specifications. While the belief is that if more water is going through the chiller more cold water will come out. This is actually the opposite of how chillers function and will limit the efficiency of the chiller. In fact running a higher flow rate than designed causes erosion in tubes and leads to them failing earlier.
Deferred or Ignored Maintenance
Everything in your building needs to be maintained properly to keep your business running properly and keep operating costs down, yet there are few systems that need more attention than your chillers.
When maintenance is deferred to avoid regular system shutdowns or isn’t even thought of chillers require more and more energy to do their jobs, costing operators more and more on utility bills. Poorly maintained chillers use as much as 20-25% more energy to do the same job. This means literally thousands of dollars difference which is much higher cost than simply maintaining your equipment.
Chiller Corrosion & Solutions
The majority of chiller tubes are made from copper and are prone to galvanic corrosion. The loss of carbon steel and corrosion can significantly affect the performance of you chiller caused by poor water flow problems and sediment buildup. Left to fester these issues means coolant loss from tube perforation. To resolve and prevent corrosion in chiller tubes chiller maintenance companies remove debris, sediment, and corrosion. Then the tubes are coated with high quality chemically resistant epoxy coatings. These coatings help prevent sediment from sticking and cover the copper and steel to keep corrosion from forming. Regular coating is critical over the course of your chiller’s lifespan and will not only extend the life of your unit, but it will run more efficiently and save a tremendous amount of energy.