chillin'

[riscott]

does anyone know who makes 5-10 ton chillers w/water cooled condensers? i have a customer that was sold a bill of goods, i know the're out there, but i don't have enough time to do all the research. customer has 4 large water tanks that need to be chilled and they are located in an enviroment that prohibits fan cooled condensers?

[clydemule]

Johnson Thermal Systems, johnsonthermal.com 760-489-9920
Schreiber Engineering, trueton.com 888-251-8522
Koolant Koolers, koolantkoolers.com 800-YOU-KOOL
Hydromiser, hydromiser.com
Drake, drakeref.com (also sold through Allied and United)
Zarsky, waterchillers.com
...and mmany many more...
If you go to liquidchillers.com you will see a listing of all of these manufacturers.

When you say cooling some tanks do you mean you are cooling the fluid in the tanks directly, or are you pumping water or water/glycol through a jacket surrounding the tanks. Makes a big difference.


Have fun.

Clyde

[riscott]

thanks for steering me in the right direction.

actually the evap is made of titanium, and is incased in a tank that salt water is pumped through using a jaccuzi pump.

thanks again,
scott

[clydemule]

Then you might want to go to aqualogic.com. They build chillers specifically for aquariums and fish storage tanks.

They are in San Diego.
I have been working on a job for an aquarium myself where I will be building a 15 con water cooled chiller for one of their display aquariums.

The systems uses freshwater thorugh the condenser and evap (separate loops). There is a bank of titanium plate heat exchangers for the condenser water and aquarium water. Chlorinated seawater from a central plant cools the fresh water on the condenser side and the aquarium water is cooled by the fresh water running through the evaps.

The original system was almost identical but they went with refrigerant directly to the aquarium water and killed a bunch of fish when they had leaks and oil got into the aquarium water.

Supposed to ship in Sept.

[clydemule]

Hey go to swep.net and look up the Minex heat exchanger.

It is a small plate and frame that you can get with titanium plates. It won't work as a condenser, but you can use a standard WC chiller and a small pump (3.0 GPM/ton) and then pump through one of these little plate and frames.

It is more gear, but it gives you the flexibility of not have to have a chiller guy build you something special.

May or not be and advantage depending on your expertise.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Clyde

[riscott]

You seem to be working on almost an idendical project. My project is for a Lobster pound, the lobster boats pull up to a pier and sell thier lobsters to my customer, who intern sells them to restaurants, markets and who ever else wants them. They have 4 tanks, one is actually on the pier measuring 18'x14'x32", the last contractor sold him a heat pump to cool it(ha ha) they need to keep the tank at about 35 degrees year round, problem with the heat pump is we are in the northeast and you know how our weather can be in the winter, so heat pump? ha ha. The other 3 tanks are on land inside, and much larger.
Thanks again Clyde,
Scott

[clydemule]

When you say they were sold heat pumps, do you mean like and air/water heat pump, or water/water?

In your first post you mentioned that air cooled condensers could not be used because of the environment. What if you used a copper fin coil and/or somekind of coated coil like Adsil, Thermoguard, Blygold, etc.

It is neat to be able to use sea water as condenser water, but there is a lot of gear required.

Since you are in the northeast, do you actually have to HEAT the tanks sometimes too?

I gave you a link to aqualogic.com, but it is actually aqualogicinc.com.

Clyde

[riscott]

Air/water heat pump, they really don't have a need to heat the water, saltwater freezes at about 22 degrees and with circulator pumps it makes it nearly impossible to freeze, lobster's live in the water through winter and don't die from the cold.

As for the extra gear, i used to work on alot of marine application systems, and still do quite abit of it so i understand, the trade-off in my opinion will be the longevity of the system and cost savings by not having to have custom made condenser coils, i had thought about it though.