A Plant Manager’s Checklist: Cooling Tower Care Before Peak Summer
Peak summer is the worst time to discover what winter neglected. A tower that limps through spring will be found out on the first forty-degree afternoon, when the chiller trips on head pressure and every repair crew in the city is busy. A few weeks of lead time changes that story entirely.
Start With the Water
- Test conductivity, pH and hardness, and compare them with your treatment targets — not with memory
- Verify the blowdown actually responds to conductivity instead of running on a forgotten timer
- Shock-treat for biological growth before warm weather feeds it, and confirm dosing or treatment equipment is cycling properly
Then Walk the Tower Itself
- Clear debris, leaves and scale flakes from the basin, and check the strainer and sump screens
- Inspect spray nozzles for blockages — dry streaks on the fill mean uneven distribution and lost capacity
- Look over fill and drift eliminators for damage, sagging or heavy deposits
- Check fan belts, gearbox oil and motor mounts; vibration left alone in April becomes a failure in July
- Confirm float valves hold level without hunting, and that overflow and makeup lines are clear
Finish at the Chiller
Record a clean baseline before the heat arrives: entering and leaving water temperatures, approach temperature and kW/TR at a known load. Without that snapshot, you will have no way of knowing in August whether the plant is performing or merely surviving. Photograph gauge readings, file the water test results, and note anything deferred — deferred items have a way of introducing themselves at peak load.
Treat this checklist as a starting point rather than a ritual: the goal is a tower that enters summer already clean, balanced and watched. See how our treatment systems keep it that way.