Condition-Based vs Outcome-Based Cooling Tower Water Treatment: Measuring the Result Instead of the Recipe
A cooling tower can run within every setpoint on the controller — conductivity in range, pH in range, ORP in range — and still be forming scale, growing biofilm, and corroding the heat exchanger. That’s not a contradiction. Conductivity, pH, and ORP were never measuring those failures directly. They were measuring conditions that make those […]
Testing Tolyltriazole in Chiller Water Treatment: Color Disc Kits vs. Reagent-Free Handhelds
Closed-loop chiller systems protect their copper and brass surfaces with a passivating film built by tolyltriazole (TTA), and that film only works if there’s enough TTA in solution to maintain it. Let the residual drop without noticing, and copper corrosion starts quietly — no bleed event, no visible fouling, just slow metal loss on evaporator […]
Corrosion Coupons vs. Corrosion Rate Sensors: Why Waiting 90 Days to Find Out Is a Problem
Most cooling tower and chiller operators find out about a corrosion problem in one of two ways: a coupon comes back from the lab with a number that’s already 60 or 90 days old, or a leak develops and the corrosion has already been happening for months. Both are after-the-fact. Neither tells you what was […]