Was scrapping some more stuff today. While I was cutting down the evaporator shell and tube bundle, it was one of those moments where a “picture says a thousand words”. This is a newer customer of mine and I was told that they kept losing compressors on this chiller bundle....yeah no kidding. No chemical treatment was provided to the water side on this open loop system that utilizes a holding tank for the chilled water. Look at all that yummy sludge🥴 This is a sealed evaporator shell and tube bundle with refrigerant in the tubes and water inside the shell. The contaminated tubing effectively creates an insulator preventing any heat rejected from the cooling medium to the refrigerant tubing bundle. Their were two drain spigots on both the inlet and outlet of the bundle. Clearly, no maintenance was provided over the years to flush and clean the bundles. Just as punching tubes each year is important, this is a testament as to why treatment and yearly descaling/“desludging” of the bundles are required to maintain efficiency of your chiller. Adding a video to the comments section so you can see what transpired when we removed the drain plug on the bottom of this bundle😅 #hvac #hvacr #refrigeration #hvacmaintenance

Posted by hvacr_mech_life at 2021-04-22 20:24:56 UTC