Ice machine calcium build up issues.

[clwriele]

Hi just want to pick some brains here. We have have over 60 follett ice machines (Flaker ) that I sevice/pm regularly. once a year the they get a complete tare down and rebuild as far bearings go, evap cleaned, augar cleaned, condenser cleaned, superheat tested, basically the whole nine yards. And then cleaned quarterly. We have a issue with calcium build up in between the yearly PM and quarterly, where sometimes it gets thick enough that it will have to be wire wheeled off in some places to speed the pm time up or leave it sit in Rydlyme. We do have soft water in both buildings and the new building we dant notice the issue so much. We kind of attribute that to the fact that its all new piping. Use to have filters on these units but our water guy said that we where taking to much of the chorine out causing pink slime, so they came off. Now some one has just told me that due to our wire wheeling some of the parts is some of the cause of the calcium build up. I disagree because there are newer units that have never been touched with a wire wheel that will get calcium in the condensate pan, down the front on the evap jacket and plug up the compression drain tube. Tried using a calcium stick and it did not help. Looking for some ideas and thoughts

[timebuilder]

I doubt you can call the water "soft" and yet have calcium buildup.

None of our clients will let us clean the machines with the frequency they need. They just don't want to pay what it costs to do it right.