The Water Drop™: Season 2, Episode 3

What's in Your Water? A Cooling Tower Horror Story

In all of my time as a water treater, I’ve been through many horror stories. But one of my favorites to tell was actually not about something that we did, but something that we found for our customer. I arrived onsite and the customer was adamant that their previous treater had recently cleaned their tower, everything was perfect and there was absolutely nothing for me to critique. We walk around the tower, I direct my attention up, and there is a tree growing out of the louvers. What that means to me is that there is absolutely no biocide in this tower, as there was no way that a tree could grow if there was proper biocide in the water. So, it meant we had to do some extra bacteriological testing. We recommended a heavy cleaning to the customer. We were able to get it out without much damage to the tower itself, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye out, even when your subcontractors are saying that they are cleaning your towers, make sure that you are occasionally taking a walk around and seeing that that is actually happening. Having nature growing out of your cooling tower is a problem inherently, but additionally, it attracts birds, other wildlife, that are then going to fall into the tower or defecate into the tower, and otherwise potentially damage your blades or get in and provide contamination to your water. It’s just all around not a good place to be. Don’t let more gruesome things grow in your cooling tower. Make sure you are doing regular bacteriological testing and you are having regular service done to your system.

What's in your water?

Do you have potential bacterial growth and waterborne pathogens in your system?