Demonstrating the benefits including improvements in the potential performance and energy savings from the retrofit installation of Sustainable Water Treatment to existing building services is a major factor in the take-up and case for investment. And being able to demonstrate what’s flowing where, not flowing or even flowing backwards can go a long way to establishing confidence with potential customers that your company knows what its doing!
Surveying existing large-scale heating and HWS installations to establish a basis for installing improvements can be a daunting task and Environmental Treatment Concepts (ETC)www.electronicdescaler.com have found that the PF330 portable clamp-on flow and heat-meter from Micronic is an ideal tool for the job.
Established in 1989 ETC has helped many commercial and industrial clients save thousands of pounds with their effective physical water treatment. Water that is naturally hard, as in 70% of the UK contains dissolved calcium and other minerals and their effect on pipe work and water systems can be disastrous including reducing heat exchanger energy efficiency by up to 40% due to lime scale build-up. The Micronics products are used to demonstrate how bad the performance is before installation and the improvements in efficiency following installation with LTHW pipe sizes ranging from circa 2 to 18 inches. The ETC products prevent new and reduce existing lime scale, water flow rate is a key factor in the process and the PF330 provides the essential information for assessment and timeframes for improvement.
Having considered various suppliers ETC selected the Micronics – PF330 – Time of Flight – portable flow instrument plus heat-meter data-logger. Portable Clamp-On Ultrasonic flow measurement has clear advantages for survey work and Micronics were selected as the supplier due to a combination of their long term experience with non-invasive, Clamp-On technology, product performance and pre-order assistance.
ETC Technical Services Manager – Simon Elliot says: “The PF330 has proved to be a great tool to undertake plant surveys including identification of circulation shortfalls, even pumps going backwards. It provides a real insight into what’s going on, like having X-ray vision. And it’s also a valuable tool for demonstrating how well our installations work to improve performance and reduce energy consumption. The Micronics website and pre-order support was good and the products are simple to use. We’ve got a lot of Public sector – MOD and hospital installations with very old pipe work where we’ve been pleased with the product performance and the ongoing service support has been there when we’ve needed it.”
The potential for similar use is significant and ETC’s experience is an example of how Clamp-On Ultrasonic technology can be successfully implemented to gather information on water services installations.