Water Treatment Consulting

WHY USE A CONSULTING SERVICE?

The Role of the Water Treatment Consultant

The Water Treatment Consultant provides knowledge and expertise. Truly independent consulting does not offer to sell water treatment chemicals and does not compete with your vendor for your water treatment business. Over the long term, the consulting work results in lower operating costs and reduced capital investment by extending useful life of critical heat-transfer systems.

As an independent Water Treatment Consultant, AWTC can:

• Evaluate the operating parameters and existing conditions of each treated water system to determine the best approach to water treatment.
• Write a comprehensive specification that includes measurable performance objectives that allow the facility operator to obtain competitive prices while providing opportunities for the consideration of innovative or proprietary technologies.
• Support the facility personnel responsible for in-house monitoring to ensure that they are testing the necessary parameters and are properly equipped.
• Review the performance of the vendor regularly to ensure that the vendor addresses any deficiencies promptly.
• Ensure that both the client and water treatment vendor are working together to achieve continuous improvement in results and maintain a proactive approach.

AWTC Achieves Balance

In the real world, financial concerns and time constraints work against the vendor and facility operator and their ability to ensure that the treated systems receive the protection that they require. AWTC recognizes and works to resolve these tensions:

• The value of water treatment services is often measured against the lowest price, rather than against the multi-million dollar infrastructure it is protecting.
• The absence of a comprehensive water treatment specification, including realistic and measurable performance objectives, allows the vendor to define their own success.
• Facility operators are asked to do more with less. Acute problems draw resources away from important but lower-profile concerns such as in-house monitoring of the water treatment program.
• On the other hand, short-term savings on water treatment services can result in long-term problems that are expensive to correct. Most importantly, corrosion is an irreversible process that cannot be “undone”.

In an environment where savings are measured in pennies per square foot, a facility operator needs to know that he or she is obtaining the best value for every dollar spent on water treatment. AWTC’s water treatment consulting goal is to help facility operators achieve this balance.

WATER TREATMENT MONITORING and TREATED WATER AUDITS

Sometimes, it takes the failure of critical equipment to flag an ineffective program. Facility operators rely on their water treatment vendor to provide effective treatment programs for the protection of critical heat transfer systems; however, vendor visits can be limited to monthly frequency. If maintenance personnel lack the resources to monitor the treatment program in between, this could lead to deficiencies.

To ensure that facility managers are receiving the service they need from their water treatment vendor in a cost-effective manner, AWTC has developed a monitoring program that provides facility managers with technical information and accurate analyses of operating conditions. AWTC communicates this information in an objective manner and in an easy-to-understand format.

Key to the monitoring services are our independent audits. Audits create the foundation for an ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of the water treatment program. During an audit, we review historical records, inspect equipment and perform testing. The in-depth report that follows documents the existing conditions and provides recommendations and a path for implementing improvements. The report becomes the basis for monitoring and benchmarking progress.

AWTC also performs these audits as part of the due diligence for the purchase or sale of property. Many of the water and deposit analyses parameters are performed in AWTC’s own in-house laboratory. AWTC also provides analysis and interpretation for client-submitted samples using our unique Analysis by Mail service

DATA CENTERS: THE HIGH COST OF FAILURE

For companies whose business relies on the storage and transmission of electronic information, data centers are arguably the most critical operational facility of a company. Some of these centers are small with minimal staffing and often are stand-alone facilities. Other data centers are large centralized facilities with larger staffs and many more systems that are critical. The rise of AI and intense demand for processing power makes data centers central to our economy.

Regardless of size, data centers have zero tolerance for unscheduled down-time; consequently, attention is focused on their primary function – the maintenance of communications and related electrical circuits.

With this focus, one area of extreme importance that is often neglected is the chemical water treatment for the HVAC systems. The water treatment cost for a typical data center is generally a small budget item. Unfortunately, the responsibility assumed by the water treatment vendor due to the nature of the facility is not necessarily reflected in the revenue generated by their contract.

The failure or shortened service life of any of the critical cooling systems directly impacts the ability of the data center to serve its essential purpose and also increases the operating cost and financial performance of the facility. The potential for the failure of critical HVAC systems due to poor water treatment typically goes unnoticed and is slow to develop. It is also an irreversible process. The loss of useful life generally cannot be reclaimed without replacing system piping and other components.

Procurement procedures for water treatment services will vary from facility to facility but typically involve the selection of a water treatment vendor through a bid process. Once the contract is let and the program is implemented, oversight of the vendor’s performance is generally limited.

Quite often after awarding a contract, the water treatment program is left to the vendor to implement, based on “good faith”. AWTC strongly recommends the assignment of a qualified individual to monitor the transition and the long-term treatment.

Monitoring should include:

• Regular review of the vendor’s service reports, paying specific attention to contractual obligations.
• Review of technical data submitted by the vendor, again paying attention to contractual obligations and other issues.
• Quarterly or semi-annual review meetings with the vendor and the person who is supervising the program for the facility and or the portfolio.

The supervision of the water treatment program should not be left solely to the vendor, as the pressures to grow their business can detract from the vendor’s attention to your business. This loss of focus is not intentional, but reflects the economic climate in which water treatment vendors operate. The vendor’s costs are continually rising, personnel changes are costly and sometimes unavoidable, and the pressure to realize growth impacts the vendor’s ability to provide the time and resources necessary to meet the vendor’s obligations.

The conditions that lead to failures in critical heat-transfer develop slowly, but once the damage starts, it is irreversible and costly.

WATER TREATMENT SPECIFICATIONS, BID ADMINISTRATION AND CONTRACTS