BLOG

Don’t Forget About The Cooling Towers

Importance of Maintenance

Water cooling towers need to be handled with as much care as just about any other important appliance as they are the heart of a building’s mechanical system. No matter what industry you work in, proper routine maintenance, checks, and repairs should be done in order to prevent any serious issues from occurring down the line and avoid a complete shutdown of the entire building.
Properly maintaining your cooling tower can save you time, money, energy, as well as expand the life of the tower itself. Keeping the cooling tower well-maintained enables the entire cooling system to perform at optimum efficiency by conserving both energy and water.

Continuum Services’ Cooling Tower Task List

The following is a task list of the crucial elements for cooling tower maintenance:

Water Treatment

The most critical step in cooling tower maintenance is a thorough, bi-weekly water treatment program. If water quality is neglected, it can foul up the entire system, resulting in scaling and sludge in the pipes and condensers.

Motor

If your motor fails, it can bring the whole building down along with it. Because these motors are extremely heavy, hoisting a new one to the cooling tower isn’t the easiest task.

• Inspect starter coils and contacts (quarterly)
• Tighten all electrical connections (annually)
• Measure operating current and voltages, and make sure that they don’t exceed the recommended guidelines found on the motor nameplate (quarterly)
• Check for excessive vibration (monthly). Signs include worn out bearings and fan blades out of balance.
• Lubricate bearings as required
• Examine motor mount resiliency (annually). If the motor sits on rubber supports, make sure they’re not dried out.
• Check the motor’s insulation (annually). If the insulation breaks down, water can seep in and
• short out the motor, check grounds

Fans

Proper fan maintenance is equally important, as broken fan blades can destroy bearings and cause other problems.

• Check blades and clean dirt accumulation (annually)
• Lubricate bearings and check for end play and wear (quarterly)
• Check condition of drive couplings, pulleys, and belts (quarterly)
• Replace belts (annually)
• Check for corrosion and wear (quarterly)
• Check the fan’s alignment, balance, and security to shaft (annually)

Other elements that require maintenance include deposit and scale control, water inlet and water outlet, spray nozzles, baffles, sump, drain and overflow, float valve and transfer case.

Contact Continuum Services to help you evaluate your property’s cooling towers at 248.286.5200 or info@continuumservices.com.

Share:

Facebook

Twitter

Google