5 Signs Your Cooling Tower Needs Maintenance

Cooling towers are easy to forget about — until they fail during the hottest week of the year. Here are five warning signs worth watching for.

First, rising approach temperature. If the gap between your leaving water temperature and the ambient wet-bulb temperature keeps growing, your fill media is likely fouled or scaled.

Second, visible scale or algae on the fill or basin. This restricts water and air flow and is often the first visible sign of a water treatment program falling behind.

Third, excessive drift or water loss beyond the tower's rated drift percentage — this points to a failing drift eliminator or damaged spray nozzles.

Fourth, unusual fan vibration or noise, which often signals bearing wear or an imbalanced fan blade and should be inspected before it becomes a costly failure.

Fifth, a steady rise in your chiller's condenser pressure with no change in load — a strong indicator that your cooling tower isn't rejecting heat as effectively as it should. A basic quarterly inspection catches nearly all of these before they turn into an unplanned shutdown.