~ by Steve Guercia, Commercial Sales Manager
Commercial water treatment covers a wide range of applications. Some are obvious, like treating processed water in manufacturing or installing drinking water coolers. But some are not so obvious. Many facilities could lower maintenance and operating costs or extend the life of equipment with localized water treatment.
Most buildings include some type of humidification. These systems use energy like heat or vibrations to change water from liquid to a gas so it can be mixed with the air. When this happens, minerals are often left behind. (This is not the case with ultrasonic humidifiers, but that’s a story for another day). These minerals will form a scale or a crust on the heating elements of the humidifier. This causes the humidifier to use more energy to make steam and it shortens the life of the heating elements. This costs money to replace.
This frequently can be avoided by installing a small water softener on the feed to the humidifier. This localized treatment keeps the new equipment cost down and focuses the treatment where it is needed. I have some commercial customers that install a softener on their humidifier in every building on their campus. We’ve been doing that for them for almost 15 years and they keep installing new ones. It makes a difference. And they are on a city surface water system with extremely low hardness.
You can lower your energy costs and extend the life of your equipment by treating the water to your humidifiers. It makes a difference, no matter how low the hardness is in your water. This coil pictured above was fouled by water with just 30 ppm of hardness.
