Cooling towers are the backbone of many HVAC systems. However, without regular maintenance and forward-thinking preparation, cooling towers can degrade and even break down faster than they normally might.
With spring around the corner, preparing your cooling tower ahead of time can save you money and help address any potential issues, prior to the high demand.
Why Is Cooling Tower Maintenance Important In Preparation for Spring Season?
The lead up into spring is a great time to get some maintenance done on your cooling towers. Before the weather warms up too much, it’s critical to make sure that your tower is ready for the load.
Similarly, if you haven’t been running the cooling tower much during the colder months, you should always conduct maintenance to make sure that the parts are still operating correctly after being dormant through winter. Otherwise, your tower could start and then promptly fail—sometimes at great expense.
How Do You Prepare Your Cooling Tower for Spring?
Preparing your cooling tower for spring comes down to developing and sticking with a comprehensive strategy. Here are a few key points to address prior to turning on your tower this cooling season.
Decide Who Will Be Cleaning Your Cooling Tower
When it comes to choosing who will clean your cooling tower before you start it up in the spring, you have a range of options. You can ask building staff to tackle the task, or you can leave it to a water treatment company or even a mechanical contractor. Each of these individuals have a different level of knowledge on how the tower works.
Working with a reputable water treatment or tower repair company is the best choice here. Different areas of a cooling tower will need to be cleaned differently, and if you have any residual water left in the tower, Legionella infection could be a real concern. Leave this task to the pros for safety and thoroughness.
Decide When You Will Need Your Cooling Tower Cleaned
So how do you decide exactly when to clean your tower? In reality, the right time to clean your tower might vary every year. You’ll want to look at how the weather is developing first and foremost. Is there warmer weather that will put demand on your tower right around the corner? If so, it’s important to get moving on a thorough tower cleaning.
Also be sure to check your tenant lease and other relevant paperwork. These sometimes specify deadlines by which this type of maintenance must be completed. You should also never start up your cooling towers before you have confirmed that your chillers or heat exchangers are ready to use. Otherwise, you could cause expensive damage and delay the operational ability of your towers.
Decide if You’re Satisfied With Your Current Water Treatment Supplier
Consider how last year’s startup, operation, and shut down was handled. Did your water treatment supplier come through with their responsibilities?
If not, now is a good time to consider other alternatives who could be a better fit. It’s easier to make changes now, before your cooling tower goes into full operation.
Decide if You’re Satisfied With Your Current Legionella Compliance Services
Similarly, evaluate how your facility handled Legionella in the last few years. Have there been outbreaks, and if so, did your compliance company help you as much as you needed? Do you have a system to log your bacteria results?
Do you have man manpower to handle these responsibilities? Many tower maintenance companies can also assist with Legionella compliance services by creating a plan customized to your facility.
Determine if a Mechanical Contractor Needs to Be Involved
When inspecting your tower to see if it is physically prepared for the cooling season, you may notice repairs or replacements that may need to be addressed. For this, a mechanical contractor could be useful.
They have the experience and knowledge to clean strainers, repair any leaks, or address any issues with pumps. If you don’t have anyone with this type of experience, the help of a mechanical contractor could save a lot of time in the long run.
Decide On A Startup Date and Notify All Necessary Parties
Before turning on your cooling tower, make sure that you inform all necessary people that you will be starting your operation. This includes your tower cleaning company, your water treatment company, the Legionella compliance company you use (if different from the previous entities) and your mechanical contractor. You may want to also notify your tenants if you feel necessary.
Not only does this help you to make sure that you are in line with compliance requirements and deadlines, but it also gives these experienced parties a chance to inform you of potential issues before the towers go online.
Trust the Experts at Tower Water for Your Spring Cooling Tower Maintenance
Cooling tower maintenance is not a task to take lightly. If it is overlooked, your facility could become responsible for Legionella outbreaks or experience severe equipment damage after the winter down time.
Trust the professionals at Tower Water to help you navigate spring cleaning before you bring your cooling towers online. Call us at 212-518-6475 to learn more or to schedule an appointment to get started.
