New Package Cooling Tower vs Refurbished Package Cooling Tower

To refurb or not to refurb, that is the question… There has been a lot of talk recently around refurbished package cooling towers.  Whilst buying a refurbished cooling tower may sound like a cost-effective solution, it often leads to issues down the line, additional costs or even worse, having to purchase a new tower, regardless.

In general, a package cooling towers’ structural life expectancy ranges between 15 – 20 years (with proper water treatment and proper maintenance) and after years and years of relentless operation, a cooling tower requires more than just a regular service or component replacement to maintain their original performance & structural integrity. Before deciding on purchasing a refurbished tower you should consider the following

• Do you have detailed information of the previous environment in which the tower operated? A fresh coat of paint hides most wear and tear.
• Do you have an idea of the age of the cooling tower? Each of our towers are fitted with a nameplate and assigned a unique serial number, remove the nameplate and you have no information on the tower.
• What are the design conditions available? Cooling towers are sized and selected according to the end users design data – so buy a second hand tower, fit it and hope for the best.
• Is your tower under guarantee? Older towers have either no warranty or a limited warranty / guarantee as opposed to a new tower (EWK typically has a 10 year guarantee on the GRP casings).

The potential cost saving on buying a refurbished cooling tower compared to buying a new cooling tower will always be a deciding factor.   In many cases, replacing the fill media or patching a spot here and there, will improve the performance of your unit temporarily, however, if the structural integrity of the tower is not addressed, you’re potentially going to have a unstable structure in the future that could result in a catastrophic failure and unwanted plant downtime.

At IWC we offer trade-in on old Sulzer, Tektower and Searle-Bush cooling towers. This can used to offset the new cooling tower purchase, making this a very attractive and more cost effective way of purchasing a new package cooling tower to suit the needs of your current or future operation.

Our sales team are a phone call away and will be happy to provide assistance and advice where needed.