Northern Indiana Manufacturing Water Maintenance
According to Indiana water quality reports, the state has more polluted streams and rivers than any other. When water moves through the earth's atmosphere and natural water sources, it collects dirt, chemicals and bacteria, which can carry into industrial water systems like closed loops and cooling towers.
Proper cleaning and flushing are important to ensure pure water, help systems run efficiently and avoid costly breakdowns. Chardon Laboratories provides cost-effective water maintenance plans in Northern Indiana. Serving various cities from Greenville to Fort Wayne, we can customize a plan to your facility's needs.
Our technicians are certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and perform treatments at guaranteed annual costs. Browse the services we offer below.
Northern Indiana Service Areas
Closed Loop Water Treatment in North Indiana
Two main types of water piping loops are used in industrial settings — open and closed. An open loop system pumps water to an open tank, exposing the water to the atmosphere as it moves through the tower. Conversely, a closed loop system fully encloses water inside pipes, minimizing its air exposure.
Theoretically, closed loop water systems should rarely face contamination issues, as the water isn't exposed to airborne chemicals and bacteria. In reality, closed loop systems are as vulnerable to corrosion, scale and microbiological growth as open loop systems.
Closed loops can experience leakage that lets air into the system, promoting contaminants like corrosion and bacteria. A facility manager may not realize that their closed loop system is corroding from the inside out due to its enclosed structure.
When left unaddressed, these issues can reduce heat transfer and break down the system over time. That being said, closed loop water systems require continuous care and maintenance to maintain peak performance and longevity.
How Chardon Can Help Protect Your Closed Loop Water System
Our team can customize a closed loop water treatment plan to your facility's needs. Our services include:
- Oxygen removal: For closed loop systems with no exposure to the atmosphere, removing oxygen from the water can help minimize corrosion. We apply effective water treatment chemicals to slow corrosion spread on metallic closed loop surfaces.
- Maintenance: Chardon performs ongoing closed loop maintenance at a consistent annual price. This includes potential hydrogen (pH) adjustments, filter changes, conductivity testing, equipment replacements, cleaning and flushing.
- Dissolved solid maintenance: We make necessary adjustments to total dissolved solids (TDS) in system water to reduce corrosiveness. We achieve this with effective proprietary treatment chemicals.
- Protective films: Our technicians use chemical compounds to create protective barriers on closed loop surfaces, passivating the metal to prevent harmful corrosion.
- Advanced equipment: We use state-of-the-art equipment like filtration devices, pH probes and biocide feeders to control and prevent fouling, corrosion and microbiological growth in closed loops.
Indiana Legionella Prevention and Control
Legionella is a naturally occurring bacteria in streams, lakes, rivers and other freshwater sources. However, it can also develop in man-made water systems like cooling towers, decorative fountains, air washers, humidifiers and faucets. When Legionella forms and multiplies in a water system, it can spread to tiny airborne water droplets.
When people in the building inhale these droplets, they can contract a potentially severe pneumonia called Legionnaires' disease or a flu-like illness called Pontiac fever. People who have chronic diseases, are former smokers, have weakened immune systems or are over the age of 50 are more likely to get sick from Legionella exposure.
This makes Legionella prevention and control especially critical in health care settings. However, proper preventive measures should be taken in every business setting.
Customized Water Management Plans With Chardon
Chardon can help you identify Legionella risk areas in your establishment. Factors promoting this bacterial growth include:
- Water temperature fluctuations.
- Stagnation.
- pH between 5 and 8.5.
- Flavobacteria, algae and Pseudomonas that supply nutrients for Legionella growth.
After understanding the bacterial risks within your facility, we can help you create and implement a proper Water Management Plan (WMP). This plan aims to protect both your water system and the people inside your building.
Following Standard 188 by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), we will:
- Survey water systems, examine current practices and assess Legionella risks.
- Report findings to determine best practices to reduce outbreaks.
- Evaluate results with a team of people responsible for maintaining the WMP.
- Establish a control plan in the drafted WMP.
- Implement the plan into your water treatment program.
After putting this plan into action, we make ongoing corrections and adjustments as needed. We'll monitor and update any changes to your staff, water systems and other control measures to defend your facility from Legionella as much as possible.
Northern Indiana Cooling Tower Chemical Treatment
Cooling towers help cool and provide comfortable temperatures in various facilities. They also serve many other applications like cooling molds for plastics manufacturing, or controlling temperatures for food processing and storage purposes.
However, cooling towers are prone to many of the same issues as closed loop water systems, including scale, corrosion, rust and other contaminants. Your tower is exposed to the outside environment, essentially acting as a large air washer.
Its open tower water loop can collect airborne particulates that stimulate bacterial growth. It can also concentrate minerals through evaporation, causing issues like scale and rust. To reduce operating costs and extend your cooling tower's life span, proper treatment and maintenance are essential.
How We Address Cooling Tower Issues
Chardon Labs will help you develop a water treatment plan based on the type of cooling tower your facility uses. Below are common problems affecting cooling towers and how we approach them:
- Corrosion: Chemical reactions in air, water and metal can cause cooling towers to gradually corrode and wear out. Our team uses a variety of corrosion and scale chemicals to prevent these issues from damaging your water system. We can also help you create an epoxy barrier to protect your cooling tower surface from corrosion and control pH levels.
- Scaling: Scale is a buildup of minerals naturally present in water, such as calcium, magnesium, iron and silica. When these materials concentrate and harden onto heat transfer surfaces, they can cause various issues in cooling towers like reduced water flow and efficiency. We can help prevent and remove scale from your tower with specialized chemical applications, conductivity monitoring and pH adjustments. We also implement a technique called blowdown bleeding. This involves flushing cooling tower water to remove minerals and contaminants, then replacing it with fresh water.
- Bacterial growth: Fungi, cooling water algae and bacteria commonly grow in cooling towers' humid conditions. After collecting water samples from your cooling tower, we'll create a proper chemical treatment plan to reduce and control bacteria.
Contact Chardon Labs Today
At Chardon, we have a shared interest with all of our customers — reducing operating costs as much as possible. That's why we sell clean systems rather than chemicals. Our water treatment services can help you avoid costly repairs and replacements, helping your closed loop system or cooling tower enjoy a longer service life. Contact us to learn more about our solutions today.