Scrap OM Titan York Chillers

[chillerbuyer]

I work at a large scrap yard in TX and recently our yard has bought some massive chillers from a large demo site. We've got a couple of Titan OM 4000 ton units and a 6000 ton unit at the yard waiting to be cut up. My department gets a cut of the scrap value as a holiday bonus that I'd like to have an idea of what to expect. No one here has cut up a chiller this big. I'd like to know for these and future reference, if there is some kind of formula or calculation for guessing how much copper is in these things. Does anyone have an estimate or should I say guesstimate as to what percentage of the weight on these monster chillers is copper? For example on a 4000 ton unit weighing about 100,000 pounds(cooler and condenser combined), how much of that would be in copper weight? Thanks all! Sorry in advance if I posted in the wrong spot.

[Nuclrchiller]

I'm not familiar with these chillers, nor do I have access to that information, but I'm pretty sure some of our members can tell you. Or find out. I would expect several hundred pounds of copper. I also wonder if York has a buy-back program for the compressor motors. Perhaps someone else here could also answer that. I'm curious to see what the answer is. I'd be rather optimistic about the copper.

[chillerbuyer]

Thanks Nuclrchiller, that does bring up another good point, whether anyone knows if the compressor or other parts can be bought back by York. There is a 25-30,000 pound Turbomaster Compressor with each of these 4000 ton units and I'd imagine someone out there would pay something for them, unless they're so large and customized that they can't be reused. Learning a lot the past few days browsing the threads on this site, for the most part, everyone has been really helpful and informative.

[Healey Nut]

To get the most money out of them you can you need to get the tubes out . Clean copper is worth a lot .
However getting it out clean takes time patience and the right tools .

[Dilp172]

Call a demolition contractor in your area , they do it all the time.Mostly done with torches cutting into shells.

[coolcoil]

I work for York, though not in the Chiller group, so take this for what it's worth:

York Titan OM chillers are extremely large custom-made chillers. They are designed for each job. There are not a lot of them out there.

The weight of the tubes will be way more that just a few hundred pounds. There will thousands of pounds of tubing in that unit. These are heavy-wall tubes packed in a dense bundle in both the evaporator and condenser sides.

Note that I did not say copper tubes! If the chiller was designed to handle brackish or salt water or other fluid with corrosives in it, special tube materials are used. Though it is very likely that the tubes are copper, they could be a special alloy stainless steel or even titanium, at least in the condenser side. I've worked on several large projects where the condenser tube was one of these special metals.

Any one of those special materials would be much more valuable than copper. Get a sample of the tube first. If it's obviously copper, then the regular scrapping process is fine. If you are not sure that it's copper, spend a few buck with a metallurgist to find out exactly what it is and then talk to somebody in the scrap field that is familiar with the market for that material. You could be talking about a huge amount of money.

I am guessing that there will not be much value in the compressor, but I do emphasize that this is a guess. These compressors are custom designed, and technology has advanced a lot over the years, so I doubt there is a market for it or the parts. There are just a few compressor rebuild shops in the country that would handle something like these. You may want to track them down on the internet. York used to have a compressor rebuild shop in Indianapolis, but I think that was shut down. I could not find any information on it on the internet. Of course, the motor will have a fair bit of copper.

Good luck with your scrapping. Even without special materials, I think you have fallen into the honey pot on this one.

[Nuclrchiller]

I work for York, though not in the Chiller group, so take this for what it's worth:

York Titan OM chillers are extremely large custom-made chillers. They are designed for each job. There are not a lot of them out there.

The weight of the tubes will be way more that just a few hundred pounds. There will thousands of pounds of tubing in that unit. These are heavy-wall tubes packed in a dense bundle in both the evaporator and condenser sides.

Note that I did not say copper tubes! If the chiller was designed to handle brackish or salt water or other fluid with corrosives in it, special tube materials are used. Though it is very likely that the tubes are copper, they could be a special alloy stainless steel or even titanium, at least in the condenser side. I've worked on several large projects where the condenser tube was one of these special metals.

Any one of those special materials would be much more valuable than copper. Get a sample of the tube first. If it's obviously copper, then the regular scrapping process is fine. If you are not sure that it's copper, spend a few buck with a metallurgist to find out exactly what it is and then talk to somebody in the scrap field that is familiar with the market for that material. You could be talking about a huge amount of money.

I am guessing that there will not be much value in the compressor, but I do emphasize that this is a guess. These compressors are custom designed, and technology has advanced a lot over the years, so I doubt there is a market for it or the parts. There are just a few compressor rebuild shops in the country that would handle something like these. You may want to track them down on the internet. York used to have a compressor rebuild shop in Indianapolis, but I think that was shut down. I could not find any information on it on the internet. Of course, the motor will have a fair bit of copper.

Good luck with your scrapping. Even without special materials, I think you have fallen into the honey pot on this one.

Maybe a call to the local York office, with the full model and serial numbers, would also help determine what the tubes are made of.

BTW, nice post coolcoil! Always enjoy learning something here.