So. I've never seen this before, and hopefully never will again.
I began a maintenance on a 1 year old BAC closed loop cooling tower, upon opening it up I was taken back by what I thought was a serious amount of calcium carbonate build up. So I continue on and start with pulling the suction strainer....which I could not pull out. Got some water sprayed in there to try and loosen things up. After a half hour I finally pulled it out, which is when I made my discovery.....everything inside the tower wasnt calcium, it was concrete. Someone had finished some concrete/mortar work outside the tower (with it running), now the strainer is trash, leaves and such mixed with concrete, I can't even begin to clean that out. Here's my question......is there any chemical that will loosen this up so I can power wash it out? I can manually break up (with my hand) the stuff in the basin and pull it out, but the heat exchanger can't be fully reached. There is about a 1/16th inch film of this mortar all over the inside. :gah:
I began a maintenance on a 1 year old BAC closed loop cooling tower, upon opening it up I was taken back by what I thought was a serious amount of calcium carbonate build up. So I continue on and start with pulling the suction strainer....which I could not pull out. Got some water sprayed in there to try and loosen things up. After a half hour I finally pulled it out, which is when I made my discovery.....everything inside the tower wasnt calcium, it was concrete. Someone had finished some concrete/mortar work outside the tower (with it running), now the strainer is trash, leaves and such mixed with concrete, I can't even begin to clean that out. Here's my question......is there any chemical that will loosen this up so I can power wash it out? I can manually break up (with my hand) the stuff in the basin and pull it out, but the heat exchanger can't be fully reached. There is about a 1/16th inch film of this mortar all over the inside. :gah:
