chris@vaheat.

com or call (804) 370‐3855 
 
Heat Exchanger Cleaning-In-Place

In the past, we've talked with our customers about the importance of cleaning your
heat exchangers and cooling towers. Now, Virginia Heat Transfer is pleased to offer
cleaning-in-place service for plate heat exchangers, shell and tube heat exchangers,
and chillers.

Cleaning-in-place (CIP) has long been used as an effective cleaning method for heat
exchangers. It's a very effective way to remove mineral scale and biological build up
from inside heat exchangers in a short period of time (most cleanings can be
completed in eight hours). As we've looked at our customer's heat exchangers over
the years, there are times when mechanical cleaning has worked just fine for some
exchangers. Typically, we've performed this service in conjunction with a cooling
tower cleaning that we performed on site. However, we continue to see situations
where even after a physical cleaning, mineral scale can remain on the heat transfer
surfaces providing a substantial resistance to heat transfer.
We're pleased to
now offer CIP
cleaning to all of
our customers for
heat exchangers
and chillers. This
cleaning-in-place
procedure is one
way of bringing
factory
reconditioning
quality on site,
closer to our
Cleaning in place (CIP) skid customers to
minimize
downtime. Consider this example. If you have a heat exchanger running a nominal
400 GPM of water with a design cool down in temperature from 110 to 80°F, and
you've lost 5°F of your cool down, you're losing 1,000,000 MBtu of cooling every
single hour. Fouling could easily cause such a drop off in performance without
routine cleaning.

The process of cleaning a heat exchanger or chiller in place is relatively easy. After
an initial discussion, we'll want to find out the approximate volume of your heat
exchanger (don't worry if you don't know, we're pretty good at estimating), what the
suspected fouling mechanism could be (biological fouling, iron scale, mineral scale,
or others), the location of isolation valves, and where we can tap into the line to
circulate the cleaning chemicals (typically a thermowell or gauge tap).
With this information, we can provide a proposal to come on site and clean your heat
  chris@vaheat.com or call (804) 370‐3855 
 
exchangers. We'll either deliver the chemicals to your site or bring them with us.
We'll arrive and review the process with you. The cleaning solution will be
circulated on the equipment and samples will be pH tested periodically to determine
the progress of the cleaning. Once the cleaning has been completed, the cleaning
solutions will be neutralized and sent to your nearby drain.

We've handled everything from large refinery shell and tube units, down to the small
plate heat exchangers. This is one more tool that we're happy to offer our clients to
help you keep your heat transfer equipment running at its peak performance level,
while at the same time, putting those heavy wrenches away from a while.
 

Keywords: Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, 
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