With the onset of summer, minds start drifting to beaches and BBQ’s. But nothing can put a damper on your fun like an emergency at your data center due to inadequate maintenance of your support equipment.
Equipment shutdown is frequently caused by dirty condensers, clogged drains, reduced efficiency, and everyone’s favorite, water under the floor.
Dirty condensers can cost up to 30% more in energy consumption, over an identical system with clean condensers. When condensers are dirty, they do not transfer heat as efficiently as clean ones. Which results in the compressor working harder by driving up head pressure.
By less heat being rejected with an air-cooled condenser, the heat will start to accumulate. This accumulation of heat in the condenser will make the condensing temperature spike, thus the pressure rise.
With the condensing temperature rising, there will be a point where the temperature difference between the condensing temperature and the ambient temperature (Delta T) is great enough to reject heat from the condenser.
The resulting higher exiting liquid temperature and pressure will also result in reduced efficiencies in the evaporator in terms of both latent and sensible head load capabilities.
Here is a list of our top 5 maintenance items:
- Inspect condenser and dry coolers for operation and squeaky motor bearings. Clean as necessary but at least once a year.
- Inspect belts for cracks, adjustment and glazing. Check the pulleys too. A worn pulley will just chew up a new belt. Change as needed but at least once a year.
- Inspect and clean drain lines, traps and condensate pump if equipped. Replace cracked or worn parts.
- Inspect filters. Seems like a no brainer but you might be surprise how many no cooling service calls I’ve been on over the years for iced up evaporators where the filter was so dirty you couldn’t see a locomotive headlight through it.
- Inspect the refrigerant circuits loose or rubbing lines. Units vibrate and over time things can loosen up or start to rub together. Copper refrigerant lines can and will develop holes if left to rub against objects.
A routine maintenance program helps to reduce the chance of unwanted problems by having scheduled visits to your site to correct these sort of things before they pop up at the worst time. And as we all know all too well, that time is usually in the middle of the night on a Saturday. There are many more things a good tech looks for during maintenance inspections, for a complete maintenance plan, contact DVL Service.
M. Weis
SR Technical Advisor
DVL Group, Inc.
