Water is the key to life. Every one of our body’s systems depends on clean, pure water. Quality water is also critical to business–particularly industrial, mechanical, and healthcare facilities that run water through their equipment. The water used in your systems will affect the quality of the products and services you produce, the lifespan of your equipment, and your compliance with state and federal requirements.

Not all water is the same.

“Having helped businesses throughout New Hampshire manage their water quality, we know there is quite a lot of variation in our state,” says Steve Guercia, commercial & public water systems manager at Secondwind Water Systems. “It may be true that a rose is a rose is a rose, but water isn’t water isn’t water,” he adds.

Water quality is rarely addressed.

Say you’re building a new facility or going through a major mechanical renovation. Your design might include a new steam boiler, autoclaves, or a humidification system. But what about the water that will feed that equipment? Does it meet the system’s quality standards?

“All too often, water quality is not addressed when specifying equipment that uses water. Electric and fuel requirements are always clear, but for some reason, there’s an assumption that all water meets quality standards. In our 30 years of serving businesses throughout our state, we know better,” Guercia says.

Here are some examples of what we have seen over the years.

• An outpatient surgical facility is four days away from opening. They decide to test the autoclaves that will sterilize the surgical instruments. After the first cycle, they look inside and realize the equipment has not been properly cleaned. No one thought about the water. They have four days to specify the water quality requirements and install the proper treatment.
• A food processing facility puts on a major addition with state-of-the-art humidifiers. Proper humidity is essential to their product quality. After less than a year, their humidification system fails because their water doesn’t meet their system’s quality requirements.
• A university library with rare collections is seeking a new humidification system. The specifications state the water must be treated with RO (reverse osmosis). Unfortunately, the company with the lowest bid didn’t allow enough money for the installation of an RO system. Now, the maintenance department is scrambling and seeking Secondwind’s help in making their system work and protecting the library’s precious collection..
• A laboratory purchased an RO system for their autoclave through an online company. No one from their maintenance department knew how to install it, so they asked Secondwind to take a look. “We noticed that several components were missing and the system was too small,” Guercia says. “We helped them get the missing parts they needed.” Unfortunately, they could only use the RO system for a year, because they purchased it before realizing it was too small to meet their needs.

Industrial Water Pretreatment

Pretreating your intake water is essential to ensuring proper heating and cooling, complying with water quality standards, and maintaining your processing equipment.

“If your system uses water, it has a water quality requirement—so be sure to ask,” Guercia suggests. “It always costs less to install water treatment with your equipment than do it later,” he points out.

Commercial Water Quality Management

Do you need help managing the water quality at your industrial, mechanical, or health care facility? Call Secondwind Water Systems at (603) 641-5767. We’re happy to provide a free site analysis. “Calling us costs you nothing. Not calling us could cost you thousands,” Guercia says.