As some of our team members have been in the water treatment industry for years, we understand that there is an immense difference between the education provided to a regular cooling tower – water treatment technician and a water treatment technician that has been trained on how to maneuver through the programming required for these new SMART – cooling tower water treatment controllers.
IMPORTANT: It is highly probable, that the majority of the water treatment technicians that visit your building on a monthly basis do not know how to program a SMART controller. Sometimes, the technician may actually know how to program the controller, however they simply lack the specific information (i.e., start time, feed time, lock out time) to enter into the SMART controller.
Below are pictures of the display panel of a SMART – Cooling Tower – Water Treatment Controller. For this location, the water treatment technician had verbalized and documented for the past 2 years that everything was fine! Our visit today was in response to an absorption chiller not operating properly (temperatures were too high and then upon further investigation we found that the tower basin had a mat of algae).
After a quick look within this controller, we realized that there has never been a water treatment program entered into this controller. Careful…..these new SMART- water treatment controllers are very unique and quite different to program than the usual run of the mill water treatment controllers or timers.
Independent, cooling tower inspections will help ensure that your current water treatment company are really doing their job.
