From the November 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


Yet, even the most thorough PM isn’t a 100 percent guarantee that a chiller won’t fail. In the rare case that it happens, there are steps to take while waiting for the service tech to arrive. “Read the manual!” says KR Products’ Smith. “Although I’m laughing, it’s true. The first thing you should do is read the manual. No one ever reads the manual. Instead, the first thing people do is look up the number of the manufacturer and call them. But a lot of simple problems can be solved by looking at the manual,” he says.

Poor water flow tops Smith’s list of problems. “Our systems have floats and if the water flow isn’t strong enough, the floats don’t float. If the level drops to less than half, the system shuts down as a protective measure.” Smith says water flow can be impacted by someone turning a valve elsewhere in the facility, if for example they’re working on something that has to do with the water flow.


Dimplex’s Bernard also believes troubleshooting guides should be consulted as an early step while waiting for a service tech. “Sometimes, turning it off and turning it back on again will be enough. Sometimes, clearing the fault screen, if any incoming power scenario gave it a temporary fault that’s no longer the case, could solve the problem,” she says. She hastens to warn that if the temperature or pressure is out of alignment, it deserves an immediate call to the service tech. “But if you turn it off for a few minutes to let it cool down, it may let you continue to do procedures until service arrives.”

However, Legacy Chiller Systems’ King says there’s a step you should take before trying to reset the unit by powering off. “When facility people turn the power off and back on to get the chiller going, any error message that was on the system will also be reset, making it more difficult for service personnel to figure out what happened,” he says. “The best thing to do is to look at the chiller and see if there’s an error message. If there is an error message, snap a picture of it with your phone.”

“And never, ever, go into the electrical. There’s probably nothing an onsite tech can do there on a fixed site chiller on his own,” says SVSR’s Taylor.

Necessary redundancy
There are times when a chiller may go down or need to be taken offline for repairs. Yet, for a component that keeps MRs and CTs and other equipment running, downtime is not really an option. So many hospitals and medical facilities choose to back their systems up. “I’d say it’s a personal choice and I do see it quite a bit,” says Filtrine’s Bond. “Whether it’s a second pump or a complete 100 percent independent refrigerant set — although I’d say only maybe 10 to 15 percent of the systems I run into are in the 100 percent set. The dual pump is about 60 to 70 percent.”

November 2014 Magazine

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