The Advantages of Cooling Tower Refurbishing vs. The Cost of Tower Replacement
Cooling Tower Refurbish vs Replace Bond Water Technologies Washington DC
The average life expectancy of a commercial cooling tower, according to most manufacturers, is 15 – 20 years*, before they need to be rebuilt or replaced. Many cooling towers built in the 80’s and 90’s are now 30-40 years old. If the integrity of the tower’s metal sump, sidewalls and distribution pans are relatively sound, but the fiberglass fill has deteriorated to the point where it needs to be replaced, there are many dollars ($) that can be saved versus the cost of replacement.
In a cooling tower fill media replacement, we completely remove the fill from each tower cell, angle grind and metal patch all metal surfaces, seal the seams, and re-coat internal, wetted surfaces with a two part epoxy coating, – Belzona Immersion Grade. Once the towers are refurbished you can expect another 15 -20* years of useful life expectancy at a fraction of the cost of replacing them with new towers.
An example of the dollar savings expected for refurbishing a tower vs. replacement is when Bond Water Technologies completely refurbished four (4) 200 ton cooling towers (800 tons total) at a cost of approx. $80,000.00 vs. the cost of new towers quoted at $100,000.00, plus installation costs. If you elect to buy new towers vs. rebuilding the existing ones, you also need to consider budgeting in the cost of a construction crane to lift them to the roof, after normal working hours or on a weekend, which would cost approx. $12,000 to $15,000 per day, plus the labor cost of the mechanical contractors installation, so you’re now looking at $200,000+ for this one example. We can verify these costs from actual proposals done compared to a new tower replacement cost quote.
Over the past 12 years we have completely refurbished many cooling towers in the MD/VA/DC area by dissembling them, re-coating and replacing the fill with “honeycomb” media,, which is more effective in the cooling process vs. vertical hung fill in most of the older towers. It also adds another 15 years of life expectancy* to these older towers, and offers the additional benefit of making the towers easier to clean. Please link to www.bondwater.com and click on the Services tab on the top bar and scroll down to Cooling Tower Cleaning and Re-Coating tabs to find more details about this service.
Rebuilding is particularly attractive if you have already invested in mechanical repairs, such as shafts, bearings, blower wheels, etc.
For additional information on this and other subjects related to Cooling Tower or Boiler Water treatment, please contact your local Bond Water Technologies Representative @ 301-721-2663 for details.
If you would like to talk with someone about your cooling tower please fill out the form below or call 301-721-BOND
* Tower restoration success and longevity may be dependent upon several factors including structural soundness, source water quality, operating conditions, water treatment application and on-going routine site maintenance.
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