San Diego Commercial Chillers

If you’re looking for an effective alternative to a standard air conditioning system for your building or business, consider taking a look at the wide range of chillers available today. In many ways, these devices function just like traditional air conditioners, but the differences in their setup and operation can save you plenty of money due to less energy consumption.

Commercial chillers are highly specialized pieces of equipment, and before you purchase one, you’ll need to learn something about how they work. Consulting an HVAC professional who specializes in working with this type of technology is the best way to make sure you get the right product installed at the right price.

If your San Diego area commercial building is in need of a new AC unit or you need service on your existing system, call Cal-West Air Conditioning. We offer a wide selection of commercial chillers and can provide expert installation, maintenance and repair services.

How Commercial Chillers Work

In industrial application, chilled water or other liquid from the chiller is pumped through process or laboratory equipment. Industrial chillers are used for controlled cooling of products, mechanisms and factory machinery in a wide range of industries. They are often used in the plastic industry in injection and blow molding, metal working cutting oils, welding equipment, die-casting and machine tooling, chemical processing, pharmaceutical formulation, food and beverage processing, paper and cement processing, vacuum systems, X-ray diffraction, power supplies and power generation stations, analytical equipment, semiconductors, compressed air and gas cooling. They are also used to cool high-heat specialized items such as MRI machines and lasers, and in hospitals, hotels and campuses.

Chillers for industrial applications can be centralized, where each chiller serves multiple cooling needs, or decentralized where each application or machine has its own chiller. Each approach has its advantages. It is also possible to have a combination of both centralized and decentralized chillers, especially if the cooling requirements are the same for some applications or points of use, but not all.

Decentralized chillers are usually small in size (cooling capacity), usually from 0.2 tons to 10 tons. Centralized chillers generally have capacities ranging from ten tons to hundreds or thousands of tons.

Chilled water is used to cool and dehumidify air in mid- to large-size commercial, industrial, and institutional (CII) facilities. Water chillers can be water-cooled, air-cooled, or evaporatively cooled. Water-cooled chillers incorporate the use of cooling towers which improve the chillers' thermodynamic effectiveness as compared to air-cooled chillers. This is due to heat rejection at or near the air's wet-bulb temperature rather than the higher, sometimes much higher, dry-bulb temperature. Evaporatively cooled chillers offer higher efficiencies than air-cooled chillers but lower than water-cooled chillers.

Water-cooled chillers are typically intended for indoor installation and operation, and are cooled by a separate condenser water loop and connected to outdoor cooling towers to expel heat to the atmosphere.

Air-cooled and evaporatively cooled chillers are intended for outdoor installation and operation. Air-cooled machines are directly cooled by ambient air being mechanically circulated directly through the machine's condenser coil to expel heat to the atmosphere. Evaporatively cooled machines are similar, except they implement a mist of water over the condenser coil to aid in condenser cooling, making the machine more efficient than a traditional air-cooled machine. No remote cooling tower is typically required with either of these types of packaged air-cooled or evaporatively cooled chillers.

Commercial Chiller Installation

The installation of a chiller is generally no more complicated than that of any other type of commercial cooling unit. But because chillers are unique in certain ways, it’s important to have yours installed by professionals experienced in working with this type of equipment. Otherwise you could wind up with an improperly installed unit that will constantly be in need of repair.

The amount of time a chiller installation takes will vary depending on the specifics of your building and whether or not you have air ducts already installed. The installation of air ducts is not a terribly complicated process, but it is labor intensive and time consuming, so you should plan for some extra installation time if it’s needed.

Commercial Chiller Maintenance & Repair

Once your chiller is installed, you’ll want to make sure it continues to run smoothly for years to come. The best way to do this is to keep up with regular maintenance on your unit. These maintenance visits typically only take place once a year and they involve a thorough inspection and cleaning of all parts of your system. During a routine maintenance visit, the silica gel is also usually replaced.

With regular maintenance, your chiller should continue to run smoothly for years. But just about any piece of equipment will eventually need repairs. When that happens, you want someone you can rely on to provide speedy and efficient repair services.

Cal-West has worked on many types of commercial chillers in the greater San Diego area over the years so our technicians have the knowledge and experience to complete any chiller job. We also always have someone on call to come out and assess your situation and make the necessary repairs. So whether you need chiller installation services, maintenance or repairs, call us today.