When it comes to your commercial water treatment system, size matters—a lot. If your system is too small, it will frequently run out of water, have reduced water pressure, require more service, and have a shorter lifespan. If your system is too large, you’ll waste money and resources, and experience a different set of problems. In this month’s blog, we discuss the factors involved in properly-sizing a commercial water treatment system.
Commercial Water Treatment System Sizing Guidelines
While some sizing principles apply to all commercial water treatment systems, others are specific to individual technologies. In this month’s blog, we’ll discuss general sizing principles to consider for all systems.
4 Factors to Consider When Sizing Your Commercial Water Treatment System:
1. Flow Rate
Flow rate is the speed your water is traveling, measured in gallons per minute (gpm). Depending upon its size, a well pump can deliver water at 5, 50, 100, or more gpm.
2. Contact Time
Many people don’t realize that it takes time for the water treatment process to take place. Both chemical and physical reactions occur before your water’s chemistry is changed. The time (in minutes) it takes for these processes to take place is your system’s contact time—how long your water is in contact with the treatment material.
Let’s say your treatment tank has a volume equal to 50 gallons. At 5 gpm, the water will be in the treatment tank for 10 minutes (50 divided by five). At 50 gpm, the water will be in the tank for 1 minute, and at 100 gpm, only 30 seconds. Each treatment technology specifies the contact time, or how long the water must take to get through the tank. And of course, your contact time will vary according to your type of water problem (hard water, arsenic, iron issues, etc.) and level of severity.
3. Daily Water Volume
Daily water volume refers to the total amount of water that needs to be treated each day. It goes without saying that the more water you are treating, the larger your system needs to be. For example, if you are removing 5 milligrams of iron per liter treated, you are going to accumulate a lot more iron if your daily water volume is 10,000 gallons versus 1,000 gallons.
4.Water Chemistry and Composition
What’s in your water and how much needs to be removed? Keeping with the above example, if you had to remove 10 milligrams of iron per liter of water treated, the loading (level of contaminants removed) would be a lot higher than if you were treating 1 mg/l. Thus, your system would have to be sized accordingly.
Commercial Water Treatment System Design and Installation in NH
Proper sizing is critical to the operational efficiency, reliability, and lifespan of your commercial water treatment system. If you have questions about your commercial water treatment system, contact the professionals at Secondwind Water Systems.
In next month’s commercial Secondwind Water Systems blog, we’ll look at various treatment technologies and the specific guidelines we follow to properly size them.
