Want to keep your steam boiler clean, protected from energy robbing deposits, and protect it from oxygen corrosion? It's really pretty simple:
1) Provide only softened water for make- up, and
2) Keep a good residual (20-60 ppm) of sulfite in the boiler at all times.
Is that all? No, but that's 90% of the solution.
There's obviously more to boiler operation and maintenance than these 2 simple steps. However, if you fail to provide soft water, or fail to protect the boiler from oxygen corrosion - you will have system problems and failures despite everything else you do.
So, for your 2011 Resolution let's make sure we do these things.
Posted on behalf of Fred Lattin
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
New Solid Water Treatment Dispensing Alternative
For those of you who are familiar with the solid water treatment technologies developed by APTech Group you know that there many benefits to transitioning your boilers, cooling towers and closed loop systems to our advanced solid solutions. (Benefits include: Reduced shipping / handling costs and hassles; reduced environmental spill concerns versus liquids chemicals; safer dispensing than liquids chemicals; neater, cleaner, safer mechanical rooms; increased worker safety and no more triple washing and disposing of 55 gallon drums, among many others.)
With all these great reasons to consider APTech’s solid water treatment solutions, there have still been perceptions that our solution is better suited to smaller implementations. To counter those perceptions we have been working on innovative sizes and shapes for our solid chemistry and with our equipment partner, Hydro Systems, on a new chemical dispenser for use with the new shapes. The result of these efforts are new 6” round solid disks and a new dissolving unit that will allow up to four of the new discs to be placed in the unit at once. This new configuration nearly doubles the amount of cooling tower chemistry that can be “stocked” in the unit at one time with no disruptions in feeding the chemistry, in comparison to our plastic bottles.
We can now give you an update on this highly anticipated dispensing alternative. The new dispenser along with the new 6” discs will be available to order by the beginning of February 2011. Pricing is still being finalized but the new gear will be available as a complete new unit or the tube/tower component only to retrofit an existing bottle dispenser. Give us a shout if you want to learn more about this important advance in solid water treatment.
With all these great reasons to consider APTech’s solid water treatment solutions, there have still been perceptions that our solution is better suited to smaller implementations. To counter those perceptions we have been working on innovative sizes and shapes for our solid chemistry and with our equipment partner, Hydro Systems, on a new chemical dispenser for use with the new shapes. The result of these efforts are new 6” round solid disks and a new dissolving unit that will allow up to four of the new discs to be placed in the unit at once. This new configuration nearly doubles the amount of cooling tower chemistry that can be “stocked” in the unit at one time with no disruptions in feeding the chemistry, in comparison to our plastic bottles.
We can now give you an update on this highly anticipated dispensing alternative. The new dispenser along with the new 6” discs will be available to order by the beginning of February 2011. Pricing is still being finalized but the new gear will be available as a complete new unit or the tube/tower component only to retrofit an existing bottle dispenser. Give us a shout if you want to learn more about this important advance in solid water treatment.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Risk Management and Your Water Treatment Program
After doing a little research on risk management, I found that many times risk management does not have to be expensive or labor intensive to be effective. This certainly can be the case with your cooling tower or boiler water treatment program.
On a very simplified level, there are a few basic steps to risk management: Identify the risks, measure the frequency and severity of the negative outcomes resulting from the risks, consider alternative solutions to mitigate the risks and monitor the results of any alternatives applied.
Let’s see how these apply to a typical liquid water treatment program:
1. Identify risks – With a liquid water treatment program, there are many risks including:
• Heavy drums – A 55 gallon drum of liquid chemical weighs about 500 pounds. Not only are these drums expensive to ship, moving these can result in back injury, toe injury, or finger injury which can lead to costly Worker's Compensation Claims.
• Spills – Liquids can spill anywhere – on the way to your facility and inside your facility. These chemicals can be hazardous to both the environment and, most importantly, your employees.
• Onsite storage – Are your liquid chemicals being stored properly? Many facilities do not have the space to properly store liquids based on their hazardous classification. The different chemicals are often stored in one containment area which increases the potential for dangerous chemical reactions.
2. Measure frequency and severity – For a liquid water treatment program with the risks mentioned above, an accident could happen anytime the 55 gallon drums are being transported to your facility, moved to the boiler or cooling tower and even when they are just being stored!
3. Alternative solution? - EnduroSolv® solid concentrate water treatment.
• EnduroSolv® solid products are packaged in 1-gallon, recyclable containers (each weighing about 10 pounds). One case of four jugs offers the same amount of treatment as one 500 lb 55-gallon drum of liquid. Imagine the savings in freight costs alone.
• There is no potential for spills as EnduroSolv® is a solid concentrate.
• Five cases of EnduroSolv® products occupy the same footprint as one 55-gallon drum. Also, since there is no leak potential with EnduroSolv® products, special storage containment areas are not necessary.
4. Monitor results – Because EnduroSolv® products contain the same active ingredients as their liquid counterparts, you will see the same scale and corrosion protection for your boilers and cooling towers you expect in a safer, cleaner and economical program.
Take a look at your water treatment program. Do any of the risks mentioned above apply to your facility? If so, contact us to discuss how EnduroSolv® can help reduce your risk and liability while maintaining your facility’s well run chemical program. Isn’t the peace of mind for both you and your employees worth it?
Posted on behalf of Kathleen Collier
On a very simplified level, there are a few basic steps to risk management: Identify the risks, measure the frequency and severity of the negative outcomes resulting from the risks, consider alternative solutions to mitigate the risks and monitor the results of any alternatives applied.
Let’s see how these apply to a typical liquid water treatment program:
1. Identify risks – With a liquid water treatment program, there are many risks including:
• Heavy drums – A 55 gallon drum of liquid chemical weighs about 500 pounds. Not only are these drums expensive to ship, moving these can result in back injury, toe injury, or finger injury which can lead to costly Worker's Compensation Claims.
• Spills – Liquids can spill anywhere – on the way to your facility and inside your facility. These chemicals can be hazardous to both the environment and, most importantly, your employees.
• Onsite storage – Are your liquid chemicals being stored properly? Many facilities do not have the space to properly store liquids based on their hazardous classification. The different chemicals are often stored in one containment area which increases the potential for dangerous chemical reactions.
2. Measure frequency and severity – For a liquid water treatment program with the risks mentioned above, an accident could happen anytime the 55 gallon drums are being transported to your facility, moved to the boiler or cooling tower and even when they are just being stored!
3. Alternative solution? - EnduroSolv® solid concentrate water treatment.
• EnduroSolv® solid products are packaged in 1-gallon, recyclable containers (each weighing about 10 pounds). One case of four jugs offers the same amount of treatment as one 500 lb 55-gallon drum of liquid. Imagine the savings in freight costs alone.
• There is no potential for spills as EnduroSolv® is a solid concentrate.
• Five cases of EnduroSolv® products occupy the same footprint as one 55-gallon drum. Also, since there is no leak potential with EnduroSolv® products, special storage containment areas are not necessary.
4. Monitor results – Because EnduroSolv® products contain the same active ingredients as their liquid counterparts, you will see the same scale and corrosion protection for your boilers and cooling towers you expect in a safer, cleaner and economical program.
Take a look at your water treatment program. Do any of the risks mentioned above apply to your facility? If so, contact us to discuss how EnduroSolv® can help reduce your risk and liability while maintaining your facility’s well run chemical program. Isn’t the peace of mind for both you and your employees worth it?
Posted on behalf of Kathleen Collier
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Hidden Drum Costs
In a previous post, we discussed the topic of triple rinsing a drum. Triple rinsing is one of several “hidden” costs when it comes to traditional liquid water treatment.
At a previous Association of Water Technologies (AWT) Convention, a speaker from a large university talked about his decision to switch from liquid water treatment to solid water treatment. In his presentation, he touched on the many hidden costs of drums. He calculated that at his facility handling drums cost him $143 per drum. This number was derived from the following tasks that are involved with handling and disposing of a drum along with the labor rate of his employees:
Unloading the drum from the truck and moving it to storage
Move the drum to the cooling tower/boiler
Setting up the new drum and removing the old one
Drain and triple rinse the old drum
Move the empty drum to storage
Loading the empty drums for disposal.
As you can see there are many hidden costs involved in getting drums delivered to your location that you might not even think about. These costs along with the potential for your employee to be injured by moving a drum (back injury, smashed hand, etc.) are just some things to consider when making your water treatment decisions. Switching to the EnduroSolv® brand of solid water treatment chemicals can eliminate these hidden costs in your water treatment program.
Benefits of EnduroSolv® include:
No heavy drums to move
Eliminate spill potentials
No pails of chemicals to move
No drum disposal issues
No on-site storage issues
Check out EnduroSolv.com for more information and to find an EnduroSolv® water treater partner/distributor near you.
Posted on behalf of Todd Lee
At a previous Association of Water Technologies (AWT) Convention, a speaker from a large university talked about his decision to switch from liquid water treatment to solid water treatment. In his presentation, he touched on the many hidden costs of drums. He calculated that at his facility handling drums cost him $143 per drum. This number was derived from the following tasks that are involved with handling and disposing of a drum along with the labor rate of his employees:
Unloading the drum from the truck and moving it to storage
Move the drum to the cooling tower/boiler
Setting up the new drum and removing the old one
Drain and triple rinse the old drum
Move the empty drum to storage
Loading the empty drums for disposal.
As you can see there are many hidden costs involved in getting drums delivered to your location that you might not even think about. These costs along with the potential for your employee to be injured by moving a drum (back injury, smashed hand, etc.) are just some things to consider when making your water treatment decisions. Switching to the EnduroSolv® brand of solid water treatment chemicals can eliminate these hidden costs in your water treatment program.
Benefits of EnduroSolv® include:
No heavy drums to move
Eliminate spill potentials
No pails of chemicals to move
No drum disposal issues
No on-site storage issues
Check out EnduroSolv.com for more information and to find an EnduroSolv® water treater partner/distributor near you.
Posted on behalf of Todd Lee
Monday, November 29, 2010
Real “Green” vs. Fake “Green”
Channel surfing last night led us to a re-run of the movie “The Simpsons”. This was the movie where the whole town of Springfield was put under a glass bubble by the EPA due to their (Homer’s, naturally) inability to cope with years of dumping toxic waste into Lake Springfield. The crux of the story is that while the citizenry as a whole finally wake up to fix the problem, it only takes a handful to tip the balance and ruin it for everyone.
The movie allowed my mind to wander about the whole environmental movement and the misguided efforts of many to wrap an existing product into a new package in order to call it “green”. These items cover the whole spectrum of offerings-from gadgets that attach to domestic water pipes with promises to “soften” the water without conventional salt chemistry – to products that have been “certified green” by some agency that only requires a fee for this certification – to items such as light bulbs that extend the life of the bulb and require less energy, but are loaded with environmentally hazardous materials.
Fortunately, EnduroSolv® Solid Water Treatment is not one of those products. We don’t pretend or promise a panacea for eliminating all aspects of dealing with chemical water treatments, but we have made great strides in providing a product that eliminates most of the hazards of shipping and handling of corrosive liquid products. Simply put, EnduroSolv® is:
• existing water treatment technology
• produced in a different form
• that is easier and safer to use
• as well as being more environmentally friendly
So, if you are in need of a best-of-breed water treatment program for cooling tower, closed loop system or boiler applications, we encourage you to consider EnduroSolv®. You’ll get the water treatment you need, plus really help to sustain the environment.
Posted on behalf of Jim Heimert
The movie allowed my mind to wander about the whole environmental movement and the misguided efforts of many to wrap an existing product into a new package in order to call it “green”. These items cover the whole spectrum of offerings-from gadgets that attach to domestic water pipes with promises to “soften” the water without conventional salt chemistry – to products that have been “certified green” by some agency that only requires a fee for this certification – to items such as light bulbs that extend the life of the bulb and require less energy, but are loaded with environmentally hazardous materials.
Fortunately, EnduroSolv® Solid Water Treatment is not one of those products. We don’t pretend or promise a panacea for eliminating all aspects of dealing with chemical water treatments, but we have made great strides in providing a product that eliminates most of the hazards of shipping and handling of corrosive liquid products. Simply put, EnduroSolv® is:
• existing water treatment technology
• produced in a different form
• that is easier and safer to use
• as well as being more environmentally friendly
So, if you are in need of a best-of-breed water treatment program for cooling tower, closed loop system or boiler applications, we encourage you to consider EnduroSolv®. You’ll get the water treatment you need, plus really help to sustain the environment.
Posted on behalf of Jim Heimert
Friday, November 19, 2010
Improving Cycles of Concentration
Cycles of Concentration, Cycles, and Concentration Ratio are all terms used to define how many times we can reuse the water in a system, before we have to remove some of the concentrated water (Blowdown) to prevent scaling or depositing from occurring. The more times we can reuse the water, the more efficient we are in the use of that water and improve the Sustainability of the process. To help understand how the term is used, how it is calculated and what the significance of it is, I’ll use a cooling tower to illustrate the principals involved.
A cooling tower is designed to evaporate heat from a process or HVAC system. As the higher temperature water evaporates, it leaves behind the minerals in the water. Think of a glass of distilled water in which we put a tablespoon of salt and stir it up. We can’t see the salt now; it is dissolved in the water. If we allow that glass to sit for a week or so, at least until all the water is evaporated, what do we have left in the glass? Salt – a tablespoon to be exact.
If we now add another tablespoon of salt to that glass and enough distilled water to fill it, and then stir it a bit, we now have 2 tablespoons of salt dissolved in the same volume of water. We can repeat this evaporation process and adding salt until we reach a point where no matter how much we stir the salt, we see it immediately start to settle on the bottom of the glass.
To measure what that limit is, we use a simple process of measuring a very soluble ion – Chlorides for example, in the city water (Make up Water), and compare it to the chlorides in the tower water (or concentrated water). The formula is:
Cycles = Chlorides in the Tower Water / Chlorides in the Make up Water
If our Make Up Water has Chlorides of 25 (ppm, but that’s another discussion), and the Tower Water has 100 Chlorides (ppm), then we have 100/25 = 4 cycles.
So what? Well, the more we can reuse the water before we have to send some to the drain to prevent scaling or settling, the less water we will need for makeup and the less chemical we will need for the new water being added. In fact at 3 cycles of concentration, 1/3rd of the water we are adding is due to blowdown. At 5 cycles, only 1/5th of the water being added is due to blowdown.
To help you increase your water, sewer and chemical dollar savings, ask your water treatment representative what you can do to increase your Cycles of Concentration in your systems.
Posted on behalf of Fred Lattin
A cooling tower is designed to evaporate heat from a process or HVAC system. As the higher temperature water evaporates, it leaves behind the minerals in the water. Think of a glass of distilled water in which we put a tablespoon of salt and stir it up. We can’t see the salt now; it is dissolved in the water. If we allow that glass to sit for a week or so, at least until all the water is evaporated, what do we have left in the glass? Salt – a tablespoon to be exact.
If we now add another tablespoon of salt to that glass and enough distilled water to fill it, and then stir it a bit, we now have 2 tablespoons of salt dissolved in the same volume of water. We can repeat this evaporation process and adding salt until we reach a point where no matter how much we stir the salt, we see it immediately start to settle on the bottom of the glass.
To measure what that limit is, we use a simple process of measuring a very soluble ion – Chlorides for example, in the city water (Make up Water), and compare it to the chlorides in the tower water (or concentrated water). The formula is:
Cycles = Chlorides in the Tower Water / Chlorides in the Make up Water
If our Make Up Water has Chlorides of 25 (ppm, but that’s another discussion), and the Tower Water has 100 Chlorides (ppm), then we have 100/25 = 4 cycles.
So what? Well, the more we can reuse the water before we have to send some to the drain to prevent scaling or settling, the less water we will need for makeup and the less chemical we will need for the new water being added. In fact at 3 cycles of concentration, 1/3rd of the water we are adding is due to blowdown. At 5 cycles, only 1/5th of the water being added is due to blowdown.
To help you increase your water, sewer and chemical dollar savings, ask your water treatment representative what you can do to increase your Cycles of Concentration in your systems.
Posted on behalf of Fred Lattin
Friday, November 12, 2010
The Unknown… Fear It? Or Embrace It
In recent weeks, one of the key, ongoing discussions within our organization has been that of size and space requirements for APTech Group to continue to effectively and efficiently manufacture and distribute EnduroSolv® and other solid water treatment products. With the extraordinary continued growth and acceptance of the solid cooling tower and boiler water products that APTech Group manufactures, there will come a point in time where the existing manufacturing set-up will be insufficient. Many of these discussions focus on the ability to rethink and reorganize the processes we have and adapt them to the facility we currently occupy. And from there determine the practicality of continuing to conduct business in the current setting.
All this leads to lots of introspection and evaluating of what is done at APTech. The time, cost and overall effort to move APTech’s process would be a seismic event and has to be approached with the best possible plan in place. In the end it will be hard to make the move or at least make the decision to move. The current facility is familiar and constant … we know how to produce great product at a cost we know we can manage if we remain where we are. But often this fact is overridden by our intuition that we have to do something different, better. When do we make that leap of faith?
I believe there is a parallel in this decision to the decision of deciding whether a switch should be made to either solid cooling tower or boiler water treatment. Your intuition tells you that the solid products are better because of all of the benefits that they provide to your facility and staff but the incumbent treatment product is the familiar constant much like our current production facility is. While the switch to solid products may not be a seismic event like moving to a larger manufacturing facility or changing production processes, it is none the less a very critical decision to make a move to working with something that is a relatively new.
If you are interested in EnduroSolv® and solid water treatment products in general please contact us and let us tell you our story … hopefully it will help make your “move” easier.
Posted on behalf of Matt Horine
All this leads to lots of introspection and evaluating of what is done at APTech. The time, cost and overall effort to move APTech’s process would be a seismic event and has to be approached with the best possible plan in place. In the end it will be hard to make the move or at least make the decision to move. The current facility is familiar and constant … we know how to produce great product at a cost we know we can manage if we remain where we are. But often this fact is overridden by our intuition that we have to do something different, better. When do we make that leap of faith?
I believe there is a parallel in this decision to the decision of deciding whether a switch should be made to either solid cooling tower or boiler water treatment. Your intuition tells you that the solid products are better because of all of the benefits that they provide to your facility and staff but the incumbent treatment product is the familiar constant much like our current production facility is. While the switch to solid products may not be a seismic event like moving to a larger manufacturing facility or changing production processes, it is none the less a very critical decision to make a move to working with something that is a relatively new.
If you are interested in EnduroSolv® and solid water treatment products in general please contact us and let us tell you our story … hopefully it will help make your “move” easier.
Posted on behalf of Matt Horine
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