Why Custom Water Treatment Is Essential for Ice Rinks

Whether you’re managing an ice rink that hosts professional sports teams or recreational activities, proper management is critical. The cooling and heating systems must stay running at all times, and you need a way to reduce water and energy throughout the process.

Custom ice rink water treatment can address these challenges and enhance your success. The correct treatments will optimize energy efficiency and keep your rink operating smoothly.

Common Maintenance Issues With Cooling Towers and Evaporator Condensers

As an ice rink manager, you might run into the following challenges with your water’s cooling towers or evaporator condensers:

• Corrosion: Corrosion is a common concern for cooling towers and evaporator condensers. It is more likely to occur due to the chemicals and high electrolyte concentration in this type of equipment. Corrosion can cause leaks and damage the metal components of your cooling system, compromising its performance and longevity.
• Restricted airflow: Mechanical issues like a loose fan can lead to poor performance of your tower or condenser. Improper motor mountings, debris and fan misalignment may cause issues or system failure.
• Noise and vibration: Excessive noises or vibrations can signal an underlying issue with your equipment, such as a drive shaft or a misaligned motor fan.
• Fan blades: The fan blades within your equipment can become damaged, cracked or lose balancing weights.
• Clogging: Debris, dirt and sediment can accumulate in cooling tower fills or condenser tubes, obstructing water flow and impeding heat transfer.
• Microbiological growth: Algae, bacteria and other microorganisms can proliferate your water system. This can lead to biofilm formation and reduced heat transfer efficiency.
• Scale buildup: Minerals can accumulate from the water, causing scale formation on heat exchange surfaces and reducing equipment efficiency.
• Mechanical wear: Components like fans, pumps and motors can wear over time, making proper inspection and maintenance necessary to keep your equipment running.

How Water Treatment Equipment and Chemicals Work in an Ice Rink

Every ice rink features an extensive network of pipes containing treatments to regulate the temperature of the ice surface, keeping it safe, solid and smooth for skating. Here’s how the process works:

1. Glycol or brine heat extraction: Beneath the rink, pipes carry glycol or brine, extracting heat from the ice due to their lower temperature.
2. Refrigerant process: The heat is carried to the chiller area, where it is extracted from the brine or glycol and converted into a refrigerant.
3. Refrigerant into an evaporator: The refrigerant initially enters the heat exchanger saturated. Upon absorbing heat from the glycol loop, it boils, exiting as a low-pressure gas.
4. High-pressure gas compression: Heat is transferred from the gas to a reciprocating compressor, where it is compressed into a superheated high-pressure gas.
5. Transporting heat to the condenser: Exiting the compressor, the gas transports the excess heat to the condenser, passing through a set of tubes.
6. Drawing heat from the refrigerant: An evaporative condenser draws heat from the refrigerant by spraying evaporating water on the tubes.
7. Repeating the cycle: The cycle repeats as refrigerant condenses back into a liquid, returns to the evaporator and collects more heat from the brine or glycol loop.

Ice rink water treatment equipment helps maintain the integrity and efficiency of the cooling systems essential for your ice rink operations.

The Importance of Water Treatment for Ice Rinks

Water treatment impacts the energy efficiency of your entire operations. You can experience the following benefits from custom water treatment for ice rinks:

Energy Efficiency

Scaling can reduce heat transfer efficiency in the cooling system, leading to increased energy consumption and costs. With water treatment solutions, you maintain efficient heat exchange processes, keeping your costs low. By targeting your specific issues, custom solutions can also help prevent scale buildup and bacterial growth to prevent equipment damage and downtime.

Environmental Impact

Custom water treatment for ice rinks offers several positive environmental impacts. Effectively treating the water can reduce the need for harsh chemicals, ensuring you only optimize the ones you need.

At Chardon Labs, we even offer chemical-free water treatments applied by expert technicians who can ensure only the necessary amounts are used. An efficient treatment system can also help conserve water by reducing wastage and effectively recycling the treated water.

Equipment Longevity

When water is constantly evaporating on your system’s tubing, it leaves behind salt, or scale. This causes reduced heat transfer, bacterial growth and mechanical problems. The rapid evaporation cycle requires automatic bleeding to control water conductivity levels. pH levels can also increase quickly, requiring monitoring and adjustment, especially during the passivation phase of galvanized steel used in the evaporative condenser. 

Without proper treatment, bacteria and algae can flourish in the fluid cooler basin. As a result, Chardon Labs uses a biocide feed that alternates from oxidizing and non-oxidizing biocides to protect your equipment.

Our Custom Ice Rink Water Treatment Services 

As a rink manager, you’re probably used to performing most tasks in your building. By letting the trained professionals at Chardon Labs take care of the water treatment tasks in your operations, you can increase the efficiency and life of your equipment. We offer the following benefits and solutions:

• Custom solutions: Chardon Labs recognizes that a one-size-fits-all approach is ineffective for cooling towers in ice rinks. Therefore, we provide a personalized, hands-off solution tailored to the specific conditions of your rink. 
• Expert guidance: Your Chardon Technician will thoroughly assess the quality of the raw makeup water, including softened and tower water, on a monthly basis. Based on these assessments, we customize the treatment chemicals to protect your equipment from the ever-changing environmental factors it faces.
• Glycol testing: We provide glycol testing services for your ice sheet loop and can supply glycol as required.
• pH management: Our expertise includes passivating new cooling towers to prevent white rust formation. We offer automatic acid feed systems to maintain pH levels within the manufacturer’s recommended range and remote monitoring to prevent any deviations during passivation.

Trust Chardon Labs for Ice Rink Water Treatment Solutions

As an ice rink manager, you face many challenges when it comes to the  efficiency of your business. Let Chardon Labs take care of your water treatment so you can focus on running your rink.

Since 1965, we have been safeguarding equipment from scale, corrosion and biological challenges. Our water treatment plans for ice arena cooling towers are unparalleled. We are active in the ice hockey community, supporting local teams and participating in multiple ice arena management associations.

Contact us today to learn how Chardon Labs can protect your investment.