What’s Wrong With This Picture? Finding Any Excuse Upon Which To Discount Unwanted News Preface A high rise commercial office building hires a new Chief Engineer.  After a few weeks at the new property, he notices certain peculiarities at the condenser water system which prompts him to have CorrView conduct a full UT investigation.  We are told there are no major issues, and that they are only interested in having a baseline assessment performed.  The building is relatively new, having been constructed approximately 8 years prior.  It has 24 in. condenser water risers at the top taking off to multiple package A/C units on each floor. Investigation Our testing identifies a higher than expected corrosion rate at about 2-3 time greater than normal.  Greatest concerns exist at various by-pass configurations and futures where we suspect rust and other particulate debris have settled.  We also find that even though lower floor pressures exceed 350 PSI, only schedule 40 pipe has been installed for any of its threaded lines.  With a higher calculated minimum acceptable wall thickness as per Barlow, we find our…

Purchasing Better News Shopping Around For The Desired Result Has Its Consequences Preface A large financial property has the interest to return an abandoned condenser water line back into service.  Since the pipe is 40 years old and has been idle for at least 10 years, an interest is raised to first chemically clean the pipe.  A chemical treatment company is awarded the contract for the cleaning service followed by maintaining the chemical treatment, and recommends a preliminary ultrasonic evaluation of the piping for potential weakness given plans to use an inhibited yet strong acid cleaner. Investigation The building manager delays its approval for the ultrasonic testing for weeks and does not provide the approval for the work until the day that chemical cleaning is scheduled.  Beginning at the larger diameter piping, CorrView International, LLC finds moderate corrosion and deep pitting but still more than sufficient wall thickness to safely complete the planned cleaning to be performed overnight.  Under the assumption that the rust deposits will be removed and an effective chemical treatment program installed, very long service life exceeding 50…

Advanced Piping Failure Corrosion Does Not Recognize The Demand For, Nor The Political Correctness Of Going “Green” Preface A new 350,000 square foot L.E.E.D certified high tech office building is designed and constructed incorporating the latest “Green” technologies.  It is specifically marketed to tenants of the computer industry.  A major component of its HVAC design is a popular and well known non-chemical water treatment device which is advertised to work based upon imparting a magnetic residence to the water.  As the literature claims, the magnetic resonance of the water in turn prevents corrosion and scaling from occurring to the entire piping system.  This “green” non-chemical device benefits the building’s L.E.E.D. status by not using chemicals, and by eliminating cooling water blowdown. The building has a large central condenser water system serving three individual package air conditioning units on each floor as well as multiple computer room air conditioning units.  The building has never had traditional chemical treatment corrosion control, and has only been operated with the non-chemical electronic / magnetic device installed. After approximately 1 year of 24 / 7 operation,…

Filtration 101 The Most Common Mistakes of Water Filtration Representatives and HVAC Design Engineers Preface A past client hires CorrView International, LLC to perform ultrasonic pipe testing at one of their older properties.  The pipe was installed in the early 1950’s using extra heavy steel.  They do not perform any form of corrosion monitoring and have used many different chemical water treatment companies throughout their history.  The quality of their past chemical treatment is questionable. A common operational problem for the building is large pieces of rust which break off to produce flow restriction for the pump strainers.  Rust has sufficiently accumulated in the chiller heads to impact their operation, and have forced mid season condenser water tube cleaning.  Some examples of rust they have saved exceed 1 in. in diameter.  Frequent manual removal of the pump and chiller strainer elements are required for cleaning.  Their condenser water is also tinted a light brown color and has some turbidity. Investigation Ultrasonic testing shows moderate corrosion activity of near 2-3 MPY, with moderate pitting activity but no serious wall loss.  Ultrasonic testing identifies that the pipe has uniformly…

Deliberate Actions An Unknown Threat Unexpectedly Revealed Through Ultrasonic Investigation Preface A high rise 54 story office building changes owners.  When the new chief engineer takes over, he notices what seems to be abnormally high rust deposits at the package air conditioning units served by a central condenser water system.  Soon after, CorrView International, LLC is hired to perform an ultrasonic investigation of the condenser water system.  The building is approximately 20 years old and has been well maintained. Investigation Our investigation shows low to moderate corrosion activity of near 1-3 MPY throughout all areas tested.  Like many more modern buildings, multiple futures have been installed at each floor but have never been used.  For some floors we identify one set of larger 4 in. distribution lines serving the floor A/C package unit, and then 3-4 additional dead end lines ranging in size of 2 in. to 3 in.  In some examples a small copper by-pass line has been installed across the dead ends in the mistaken belief that it mitigates damage caused by no water flow.  Most, however, are valved…

Unnecessary Panic Poor Ultrasonic Equipment, Inexperience, And Poor Operator Training Combine To Create A Major Non-Emergency Preface Our ultrasonic investigation at a large financial institution identifies weakness at their smallest diameter threaded fittings at the condenser water system.  Multiple drains and vents have been installed using standard schedule 40 pipe directly connected to brass ball valves.  All other results are excellent, and show the larger main pipe to be in near new condition. Corrosion activity is low, but after 20 years of service, has reduced the small threaded nipples to near or below minimum acceptable standards.  Higher corrosion and pitting is measured at the brass valve side of the small 3/4 in. steel nipples due to suspected galvanic activity, with leakage and rust encrustation at the threads common to many examples. Testing near the valve side of many pipe nipples produces low thickness values approaching the thread cut itself.  We recommend the global identification and replacement of every existing threaded pipe nipple prior to a reliable isolation valve, and recommend the use of dielectric fittings or schedule 80 pipe as their replacement. While…

Not Unexpected The Benefit Of Prior Investigative Experience And A Sharply Trained Eye Preface A large financial institution plans the installation of two 4 in. wet taps into their active 24 in. condenser water header piping which serves their refrigeration machines and heat exchangers.  As a standard precaution, they hire CorrView International, LLC to determine the wall thickness of the pipe in the areas planned for welding.  CorrView has previously inspected this same facility going back 12 years, and has consistently identified low corrosion activity at their condenser water system to below 1 MPY. Investigation Testing in both well defined areas takes under ½ hour to perform and produces excellent results as expected.  We confirm high and uniform wall thickness still exceeding new standard pipe specifications of 0.375 in. since the pipe had been originally oversized when installed 22 years earlier.  In combination with low corrosion activity, virtually unlimited service life remains in both areas of concern.  Prior testing of the 24 in. mains had consistently identified high wall thickness.  Our initial measurements of the piping system 12 years earlier had…

Following The Wrong Course A Corrosion Problem Can Provide The Opportunity For Others To Benefit At Your Expense Preface A mechanical engineering firm is hired to design a HEPA or high efficiency particulate filter housing around their client’s roof level cooling tower in order to clean the air.  The interest of the facility is to stop the capture of airborne dirt and debris which their client believes is interfering with process equipment served by the open condenser water system.  Three large sand filters have been installed, with the filter room being expanded to accommodate additional filtration units. The engineering firm recognizes the difficulty of filtering the enormous volume of air pulled through multi-cell cooling towers serving nearly 2,000 tons of refrigeration, and questions the need for such unusual measures never before encountered in the HVAC field.  Subsequently, the engineering firm recommends a piping survey to determine whether corrosion may be responsible for any of the debris causing the operation problems to the facility.  An Internet search leads to CorrView International, LLC, who are brought into the project. Investigation Testing immediately identifies…

Luxury Living Disaster A Combination Of Neglect, Incompetence, Unknowing, And Greed Leads To Major Pipe Failure Preface The full renovation of an old New York City warehouse produces 12 luxury condominiums selling at $10-25 million each. When completed, the water treatment contractor fails to chemically clean and passivate the pipe, and then does not begin the treatment program for more than a year.  Feeding equipment and chemical drums are installed but do not function.  No one managing the building recognizes the importance of the chemical treatment program, nor the damage being caused. Following months attempting to get the chemical feed equipment to work and the program up and running, management hires a new chemical treatment company to take over this responsibility and correct past errors.  After more than 16 months of no water treatment, the new company finds massive volumes of rust and mud in the open condenser water system supplying 12 individual mechanical rooms. The cooling tower and surrounding roof is covered in red rust – leading to a recommendation by the new treatment contractor that a chemical cleaning and flushing of…