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HVAC Water Treatment for Cooling Towers

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Water-based HVAC systems often include a cooling tower and water-cooled chiller to remove excess heat from the system. With such pivotal cooling tasks, your tower deserves the highest-quality care and maintenance. That way, it can provide years of efficient operation without sending your bills through the roof.

If your HVAC company needs comprehensive cooling tower services, look no further than Chardon Laboratories. We offer customized chemical solutions, state-of-the-art monitoring equipment and almost 60 years of water system treatment experience.

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HVAC Water Treatment for Cooling Towers

Water-based HVAC systems often include a cooling tower and water-cooled chiller to remove excess heat from the system. With such pivotal cooling tasks, your tower deserves the highest-quality care and maintenance. That way, it can provide years of efficient operation without sending your bills through the roof.

If your HVAC company needs comprehensive cooling tower services, look no further than Chardon Laboratories. We offer customized chemical solutions, state-of-the-art monitoring equipment and almost 60 years of water system treatment experience.

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What Is Water Treatment for Cooling Towers?

Cooling towers are fundamental devices, rejecting heat to cool down various processes and buildings. These heat exchangers need proper treatment to maintain cooling efficiency and keep operational costs to a minimum. Without sufficient upkeep, they can face contamination issues that decrease productivity, increase downtime and warrant expensive replacements.

Cooling tower water treatment involves a combination of chemicals and technologies to:

  • Maintain optimal water quality.
  • Balance the water’s chemical properties.
  • Reduce levels of scale, corrosion, bacteria and mineral deposits.

Because every cooling tower has unique challenges and needs, water treatment isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. However, it typically involves specialized chemicals, such as:

  • Scale and corrosion inhibitors.
  • pH adjusters.
  • Water softeners.
  • Anti-foaming agents.
  • Biocides.

Like any water system, your cooling tower will also require robust cleaning, disinfection and filtration. Chemically treating and cleaning your tower minimizes the risk of microbiological growth, scale and corrosion. Rigorous water treatment is essential to prevent these issues from spiraling into larger ones, keeping your cooling tower reliable and contaminant-free.

Importance of Water Treatment in HVAC Systems

Buildings have stringent heating and cooling requirements that HVAC systems must abide by year-round. System malfunctions and breakdowns can set back operations significantly. Cooling towers are common and critical elements of HVAC systems, providing effective temperature control. However, these towers are susceptible to numerous issues that affect performance and drive up costs.

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Fungi, algae and bacteria thrive in moist, humid environments, making cooling towers a hotbed for these contaminants. Legionella is prevalent in cooling towers. Unlike other bacteria species, it poses risks to human health.

Breathing in airborne droplets contaminated with Legionella can cause Legionnaire’s disease, a severe pneumonia. Certain people — such as those over the age of 50, smokers and immunocompromised individuals — are at an increased risk. Some factors supporting Legionella in cooling tower water include:

  • Stagnation
  • pH between 5 and 8.5
  • Temperatures between 68 and 122 degrees Fahrenheit
  • Microorganisms like algae, flavobacteria and Pseudomonas that supply nutrients for Legionella
  • Sediment-promoting commensal microflora growth

One of our Chardon specialists can analyze your site for Legionella risk factors and help you develop a water management plan based on the results. After flushing and refilling your tower, we can help you maintain its purity with the proper treatment chemicals to manage bacterial development.

Corrosion occurs when cooling tower water comes into contact with metal. There are two types of corrosion:

  • General: General corrosion spreads over the entire metal surface.
  • Pitting: Pitting corrosion is more localized, causing heavier concentration in one area. Pitting tends to be more damaging than general corrosion, as it targets a smaller area and is usually more difficult to detect.

Regardless of the type, corrosion can eat away at inner mechanisms, leading to issues like pipe blockages, system leaks, equipment damage and costly downtime. Chardon can help you administer the right chemicals and regulate pH to inhibit corrosion in your cooling tower.

Scale is a white, chalky residue that often accumulates on cooling tower surfaces. It consists of dissolved minerals like silica, calcium and magnesium. Scale deposits can come from the surrounding air, makeup water or materials in the cooling tower.

Scaling can cause multiple issues in your tower, including reduced efficiency, tube blockages and equipment damage. Chardon uses a variety of techniques to manage scaling in cooling towers, including chemical treatments, blowdown removal and conductivity monitoring.

What We Do for You

Chardon can help you tailor a cooling tower chemical treatment plan to your facility’s needs. Our solutions help protect against microbiological formation, white rust, concentrated mineral content and other contaminants. As part of your personalized program, you’ll receive the following services at a guaranteed annual price:

  • Water system testing and reporting to determine its status
  • Treatments administered by ISO-certified technicians
  • Removal, prevention and control of corrosion, scale and biological growth
  • Heat exchanger services
  • Continued maintenance

We can conduct a full cleaning, flushing and passivation of your system to prevent contamination. Additionally, our range of chemical solutions includes scale and corrosion inhibitors for both hard and soft makeup water.

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What Chemicals Will Be Used?

Chemical treatment is vital to maintain peak cooling tower operation and efficiency. We use proprietary chemical blends to manage scaling, corrosion, bacteria and other contaminants. Here are the different cooling tower chemicals we use:

  • Corrosion inhibitors: Our corrosion inhibitor chemicals help remove scale and rust to enhance cooling tower performance and longevity.
  • Oxidizing biocides: Our oxidizing biocide chemicals use an electron transfer reaction to fight harmful microorganisms in the water. They’re also easy to measure and disperse.
  • Nonoxidizing biocides: Our anti-bacterial nonoxidizing chemicals address bacterial growth, pH imbalances and water toxicity.
  • Anti-foaming chemicals: Foaming in cooling tower water can result from biocide overfeeding. Our anti-foaming chemicals help remove excess foam from your tower.
  • Pretreatment chemicals: Cooling tower water pretreatment is important to optimize heat transfer equipment life span. Our specially designed chemicals stimulate two key pretreatment phases — removing foreign debris (precleaning) and encouraging the development of an inhibitor film (prefilming).

Equipment We Use With Chemical Treatments

Besides selecting and applying the appropriate chemicals, we use advanced equipment and technology to track water quality. For instance, a biocide timer helps distribute proper feed levels, reducing the risk of Legionella formation. We also use:

Why Chardon Labs Is Right for You

At Chardon Laboratories, we share a mutual goal with our clients — keeping their expenses as low as possible. Instead of quickly driving up your costs by regularly charging you for chemicals, we provide everything you need at a fixed price. That includes chemical treatments, cleaning, inspection, testing, monitoring and maintenance.

When you choose Chardon Labs for water treatment services, you gain a partner with both extensive industry expertise and the desire to help you succeed.

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    Contact Us for HVAC Cooling Tower Treatment Today

    Whether you’re dealing with a contaminated cooling tower or looking to implement more proactive prevention measures, Chardon is here for you. If you’d like to learn more about our services or schedule a free survey of your cooling tower, get in touch with us today.

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