Inspection, repairs, of the cooling tower structure and components, is critical as part of the overall maintenance. Its high time we consider and mandate at least six-monthly maintenance for all cooling towers in Australia. We need to avoid such devastating incidents that took place on 28th of Feb 2023 at the Chemical Plant at Banksmeadow, Sydney’s East and also late last year at the2022 at Callide Power Station’s C3 Unit, Queensland
Physical maintenance and repairs of cooling towers is being overlooked
Why are cooling towers collapsing, catching on fire, fan drives failing at high speed, shutting down infrastructure, endangering life, causing environmental damage, and tying up our emergency services?
The water treatment companies argue that the regular cleaning of the cooling towers is maintenance, but this is false. FlowMatrix, as cooling tower experts believe that cleaning has nothing to do with true equipment maintenance.
Maintenance requires cooling tower professionals. It’s about time the industry woke up to engage professional cooling tower companies to do the maintenance of cooling towers, to make sure that the units are safe to operate every day.
Cooling tower bacteria safety is a job for water treatment companies as they are chemists, but cooling tower maintenance is a cooling tower company speciality.
Failures that occur due to poor maintenance
- Collapsed fill pack and hot water decks due to corroded bolts and failed supports.
- Fan drives fail at high speed due to corrosion of fans, shafts, and bearings. Components can fly off and potentially kill or injure people, as well as smash into the casing and supports.
- Faulty drift eliminator material, damaged components, and poor installation allow bacteria such as Legionella or hazardous chemicals to become airborne. Once airborne the bacteria and chemicals contact people, damage steel such as roofs, vehicles, and buildings and stain glass windows.
- Poorly maintained cooling tower motors, pumps, and water distribution systems are noisy, squealing, and annoying to people that live or work close to a cooling tower. Poor maintenance is noise pollution.
- Poor maintenance causes water and hazardous chemical leaks from cooling towers, onto roofs, into rivers and onto the ground. This should not happen if maintenance is in place.
At Flowmatrix we offer maintenance programs for cooling towers. If we find faults, we quote the customers to repair them.
We offer a full maintenance catalogue service of all the components in the cooling towers, and we’ll record all the pumps and motors and bearings of shafts and fill pack and drift eliminator details so that we have a record of what’s needed if something does go wrong. We also recommend which parts should be held in stock just in case something did go wrong.
We have said this before and saying it again!
Be safe when it comes to your cooling tower, and let the professionals handle all your needs, allowing you to always have peace of mind for yourself, your employees, and your business!
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