AC Cooling Towers
The author of this report has been asked to compare and contrast two different types of air conditioning (AC) cooling towers. This report will be a professional opinion based on the literature, pricing and specifications available for the two towers under review. Of course, there are important concerns when picking an air conditioning cooling tower and having one installed including useful life cycle, maintenance costs overall, the ease in which maintenance can be completed and so forth. While cost should obviously be a concern, the length of life of an air conditioning cooling tower as well as the efficiency and other traits of the cooling tower matter just as much, if not more.
Analysis
One of the brands up for review is known as TowerTech. Their brochure includes costs but also highlights the fact that there are two main types of air conditioning cooling towers, those being closed circuit and non-closed circuit towers. TowerTech hypes the fact that the latter is actually a much better option and for a few reasons. Those reasons including less cost spent on installation, less weight of the unit, a more flexible layout, no more glycol needing to be used, easier inspection and maintenance ability and a life expectancy that is double to triple that of closed circuit cooling towers. Features of the TowerTech in particular include heavy duty pultruded FRP structure with what they call SS hardware. The variable flow nozzles on the unit are self-cleaning, the basin for the unit is entirely enclosed and the fans...
One major way in which the closed-circuit units are inferior is that the non-closed units have an external heat exchanger that improves overall operation (TowerTech, 2015).
The TowerTech people offer a straight comparison between what their towers cost and what a comparable closed circuit tower would cost. Indeed, the cost differential is actually pretty small for the smaller towers but becomes noticeable for the larger ones. For example, a 250 ton TowerTech tower is only $5,000 less than a comparable closed-circuit tower. However, the rest of the differences are noticeable. The horsepower level of the fan is forty percent less, the weight of the unit is noticeable less, the ability to maintenance and access the unit is much easier and the TowerTech has triple the warranty, at least according to them. When looking at 750 ton units, the cost differential skyrockets to $25,000 (160,000 versus 135,000). The fan horsepower is also noticeably different. The weight of the unit is more than twenty-five percent less for the TowerTech unit, the maintenance is still easy and the warranty is still fifteen years as compared to the five years of the closed-circuit towers (TowerTech, 2015).
The other material the author of this report has with pricing information included is a full-on proposal to install an air conditioning cooling tower. The vendors and/or installers involved in the proposal are HCL Mechanical Services and Honeywell. The tower to be installed for this contract was a BAC PT2 two-cell cooling tower. The…
