As most facilities, maintenance and service engineers know – “Going Green” without “breaking the bank” typically requires stepping-up maintenance practices on existing equipment and replacing old equipment only when it can no longer provide the efficiency needed even under the best of maintenance practices. But replacing old machines with new energy efficient equipment doesn’t guarantee you will realize the full efficiency benefit if your maintenance practices don’t prevent fouling of the condenser coils. Note: the term “prevent fouling” is used to distinguish it from the notion that traditional maintenance methods allow coils to go from clean to dirty or, said another way “go from efficient to inefficient” between cleanings vs. practices that protect the coils from fouling in the first place.
Energy Savings & Efficiency Not Happening Here
Dual Coil with fouled inner coil
Coil cleaning, though an unpleasant task is critical to our operations – It takes us about 2.5 hrs. to clean our 90 Ton Intellipack Units – with 6 of these units supporting robotic welding systems, we cannot afford for the equipment to go down due to coil fouling; when cleaning the coils, we still have to take the units off-line resulting in expensive down time and lost productivity. We tried everything from window screens to roll filter media and quickly discovered that these materials though effective in stopping debris, seriously restricts air-flow and cause our equipment to trip off on high head. Last summer we tested cottonwood filter screens with quick release quarter turn fasteners on one of our units – Our rep came out and measured our equipment for proper sizing prior to ordering – WOW, what a huge difference they make. We will be purchasing filters for the rest of our equipment this season – they really do work and we are able to clean the filters in a fraction of the time it takes to clean the coils – now we simply turn off the fan and sweep the filters off, turn the fan back on and move on to the next unit – NO INTERUPTION TO PRODUCTION. HUGE!!!
B. Johnston
Chief Engineer
Moore
Comment by B. Johnston — March 5, 2011 @ 11:16 am
Cooling Towers are an essential element in any large scale industrial activity recently. Due to the growing need of cooling towers around the world and in India in particular, many companies have been set up to meet the demand of such towers in various industrial applications.
Comment by Cooling tower — August 22, 2011 @ 3:19 am
Really great article with very interesting information. You might want to follow up to this topic!?! 2012
Comment by celexa online — August 24, 2011 @ 7:19 am
WOW, Really Good Article.
I bought filter screens for eight of my units – six rooftop units and two 150 ton air cooled chillers. What a difference it has made in both our maintenance and energy savings. With our new filter screens, we have reduced our maintenance time by over 50 percent and our energy cost has dropped by over 25%.
I wish we had been aware of this great product long before now.
David Elnoe
Facilities Engineer
Jacobs LTD
Comment by D. Elnoe — August 26, 2011 @ 2:23 pm