Ensuring Optimal Efficiency of Your Cooling Tower with These Maintenance Tips
Cooling towers are used primarily for cooling water in air conditioning systems. The services required for the maintenance of evaporative cooling equipment, such as your cooling tower, deal with the quality of water and air. Without proper maintenance, cooling towers are destined to develop problems that can affect your energy costs and the performance of the cooling tower system. For this reason, if you have a cooling tower, follow these maintenance tips to ensure that it functions effectively.
Treatment of Water
A thorough water treatment is critical in maintaining a cooling tower system. If you neglect the quality of water, your entire cool tower system can foul up, causing sludge and scaling in the condensers and pipes. You can hire a company that has expertise in water treatment like Marley Flow Control Pty Ltd. Ensure that your water is treated with scale inhibitors and biocide. In addition, consider installing automatic sensors and feeders as well.
Water Inlets and Outlets
You need to inspect your water inlets and outlets for leaks. Any leaking points should be repaired as soon as possible because they will interfere with your system's operation.
The Fan
Broken or damaged fan blades can destroy the bearings and result in further problems. For this reason, you need to check the blades periodically (about once or twice a year) for dirt accumulation, wear and corrosion, alignment and balance of the fan, its security to the shaft, and the condition of the belts, couplings, and pulleys. Have your bearings lubricated and damaged belts replaced. Any dirt accumulation should be cleaned as well.
The Motor
A failed motor will result in failure of your entire cooling tower system. Since these motors are very heavy, hoisting new ones to your cooling tower is not easy. Moreover, the replacement costs may be high. To avoid this, you can perform certain tasks on a regular basis. First, have all the starter contacts and coils inspected at least twice or so annually. Moreover, ensure that all the electrical connections ate tightened regularly.
Your cooling tower has a motor nameplate. Sometimes recommended guidelines on operating voltages and current will be found on this nameplate. Therefore, have your system's operating current and voltage checked by an electrician to ensure that they don't exceed the recommendations. You also need to check for excessive vibrations at least once every month. Some signs of excessive vibrations include fan blades being out of balance or worn out bearings.
