New Episode – How to PROPERLY size a pump for your chiller – Process Chiller Pro Podcast.

How to PROPERLY size a pump for your chiller

Video of this Episode

On the Road?
Listen to AUDIO ONLY
version of the Podcast

Follow the Process Chiller Pro podcast on these platforms.

Listening on your phone or mobile device? These great podcast platforms may require apps to be installed to access the podcast on your mobile devices. 

Get an email alert when new episodes are posted.

Show notes

One of the most frustrating, and costly I will add, challenges you can have and a process chiller system has an incorrectly sized chiller pump. Too small means you can’t get the flow and pressure your process needs, and too large can damage your process equipment, such as broken tank jackets.

The last episode will cover how to properly size your chiller pump to meet the needs of your process.

 We will be looking into:

  1. The best way to layout a process chiller fluid distribution system.
  2. What information do you need to collect on your initial site survey.
  3. Use the PCA Systemsyzer tool to calculate the right pump size for your application quickly.

 Once your calculations are done, you will have data to provide to your process chiller manufacturer to ensure that you have the right pump installed into your chiller for the job.

 The information I will cover in this episode will help the service contractors out there when you are asked to diagnose chiller process fluid flow or pressure issues for your customers.  

CLICK THIS LINK TO ACCESS THIS EPISODE IN BOTH AUDIO-ONLY AND VIDEO FORMATS.

https://bit.ly/30G06pR

The topic covered in this episode of the PCP podcast is a foundational component of my skilled trade’s success process that you see here.  

We have a sign-up for a free five-day Mini-Course (coming soon) where I will share the four key elements of a success process that makes it possible (and I would argue likely) for you to become a millionaire working in skilled trades. 

 TO ACCESS THE PCA RESOURCE PAGE AND GET MORE INFORMATION ON THE SKILLED TRADES CAREER SUCCESS PYRAMID

https://bit.ly/3vW5L6t

 

Episode That Support This Topic.

Episode Transcript

Martin King 0:08
Hey guys, Martin King here. Welcome to this new edition of the process chiller pro podcast. One of the most frustrating things that you run into in the field is an improperly sized system pump on a process chiller. If the pumps too big, you could run into damage of whatever it is you’re cooling because you got too much pressure and on the flip side, your pumps too small, and you’re not getting enough flow or pressure to service the process requirements. In this episode, I’m going to be covering how to properly size a system pump for the process. And I’ll be covering the specific topics such as the best way to lay out a process chiller system as far as the fluid distribution, what information you need to collect from the field in order to do a proper system pump sizing. And lastly, I’m going to be covering the use of two tools that process chiller Academy offers. The first is a data collection worksheet, it allows you to collect the critical information that you need in order to do a chiller or pump sizing. The second thing I’m going to cover is the system sizer tool. And this is an Excel based tool that I developed about 10 years ago, I’ve made upgrades along the way. And I’m going to be introducing you to how to apply that tool to the information you’ve collected on the worksheet to come up with a proper system pump selection. My ultimate goal here is to make it possible for process chiller owners that are doing their own maintenance on their chillers, or a contractor or service technician coming into a troubleshooting situation to be able to quickly determine what the problem is if it’s a problem with the pump, or it’s a problem with the system layout and come to a quick conclusion as to what needs to be done. So before we jump into this episode, a couple reminders, we produce all of our content in two different formats. We do video as well as audio only. So if you happen to be driving around in your service truck, listening to this content, that’s awesome. That means that you’re probably ahead of 90% of the technicians out there, mainly because you have the mindset of investment in yourself. So I commend you for that. However, if you are a little confused about the stuff I’m talking about, why don’t you just make a mental note, save the link if you’ve been notified through one of our social channels or email and pop over to the process Tiller Academy comm page for this episode, and check it out in video format as well. It really helped fill in the gaps. Now I will do my very best as I’m going through this content to try to explain what I’m putting up on the screen. However, sometimes I just can’t do that good of a job at it because it tends to be a little bit technical. So make some time to do that. Lastly, if you’re into the HVAC, trade or skilled trades, and you’re learning about new stuff that I’m providing on these videos, I want to remind you that this content is really designed for people who are skilled trades people. In other words, you’re comfortable with refrigeration, you’re comfortable with electrical, and you have a good amount of common sense not to get yourself into situations where you can get yourself hurt. So my suggestion is, if you’re carrying out one of the things that I’ve described in any one of these videos, and you’re feeling a little bit uncomfortable, stop and find somebody with a little bit more experience to help you do these tasks that I’m talking about. So that’s my keep it safe guys suggestion. Well, without further ado, let’s jump into this new episode of the process chiller pro podcast.

As I touched on in this episode’s intro, selecting the right system pump, it is critical in making sure that whatever you’re cooling with your process chiller is getting the proper pressure and flow of fluid. Not making the right pump selection, whether you’re doing a design for an brand new system, or an upgrade or just responding to a service call can really lead to some challenges and a lot of time being spent to try to figure out what the heck’s going on. As a quick note, the information I’m going to provide you with in this episode does not replace a qualified, ideally local mechanical engineer that’s familiar with all the local codes. An example of what I’m talking about here is there’s some municipalities that have strict code requirements on velocities through main headers and branch lines. And as I’m doing this for you, I would not know what those local requirements are a local mechanical engineer will. So that’s my idea. That’s my point here. A local engineer will have alternative recommendations for you in many cases, and it’s always a good idea to get as much information you can when you’re doing important selections, such as pump sizing. If you’re a service contractor or a technician, I want to remind you of a panel Last episode that I did on how to perform a run out test on a process chiller. This is super important because this episodes covering more design stuff, selection of a system pump. But if you’re in a troubleshooting situation, for example, if you have a customer that has had a chiller running for quite some time, and all of a sudden calls you up and says, Hey, I’m not getting enough flow or pressure to my process. One of the first things you want to do before you even get into the engineering or selection of a replacement pump, is to make a determination if the existing pump is working correctly. And the way you do that is with a run out test. So in the show notes for this episode, there’ll be a link to that past episode on how to perform a run out test, I’d suggest that you check that out. Before you dive into design issues that I’m going to be covering in this episode, let’s do a quick review of a fluid distribution system inside of a chiller, the internal fluid plumbing as well as best practice for external plumbing. And I think this will be really helpful as we proceed through this episode. What you’re looking at here is a research loop chiller, this is a very typical design for a process chiller application. So this is going to be the the plumbing inside of the chiller, then we’re going to flip over and look at the external plumbing as well. So in the middle of this chiller is a pressurized tank, this is typically a stainless steel pressurized tank, and it’s closed loop. So what we’re going to have is two pumps, we’re gonna have a research pump that’s drawing off the tank, all right, going up through a strainer going to the chillers, evaporator work absorbs the heat and then back to the tank. So this is your recerca loop, this is inside the inside the chiller cabinet, then you’re going to have a separate loop here that also draws off this tank. And the fluid goes down into a system pump. This is the pump that services, you’re the load, this is the pump that services, whatever process that you’re cooling, it goes out through this line here to your process. And then it’s where it’s absorbing heat from your process coming back, and then it goes to this tank. So this again, this is a dual loop. The benefit of something like this is that no matter what’s happening out here, let’s say if the let’s say this is on an MRI, and an MRI is in standby, not generating a ton of heat. But once you do from zero, you know you go from nothing to doing a full body scan. That is where most of your heat comes from. Right. So it that that energy goes way up real quickly. So that hot fluid is going to come in here and mix with this fluid in this tank. And this acts kind of like a big thermal capacitor. So that’s why these are very popular for especially mission critical applications. Because no matter what you have going on on your your return of this hot energy Layton fluid, you’re going to see very little degradation of temperature going out to your process and a lot of processes that’s very, very critical. So that’s a dual loop. Alright, so what we’re going to do now is I’m going to flip over to the external setup, what it looks like external to the chiller. And this is this drawing that I’m putting up here is probably the it’s probably the best practice, if you will, for setting up a distribution system. So I’m going to run through this real quickly. So of course you have your chiller, we just covered what’s happening in the chiller a minute ago. Now we’re going to cover what’s happening outside. So the blue obviously is going to be for your cold fluid going out the Reds for the warm fluid coming back. So you’ll come out off of the chiller. And the first thing that the fluid sees is what we call filter bypass assembly. And the idea of this is to be able to clean or if this is a filter, replace a cartridge without shutting off the flow. So you basically when you want to check and service, this particular strainer, you’ve got pressure gauges on either side of it. So you see a big pressure differential. So you close close open and then you’ve isolated that y strainer, you can clean it, service it and then when you’re all done, you open open close. So that’s how that works. It’s a filter bypass very very popular. So this line here continues in this is part of your your supply distribution header. That’s this entire line. And then you come to a ball valve with an automatic air vent. And then at the very end here you have a bypass and this subject of a bypass is actually going to come up later on in this episode I’m going to in the scenario I’m going to use for this this episode I’m going to be talking about a bypass again. So kind of keep that in your your mind’s eye if you will. So that’s your supply side tool. You’ll notice on the along the supply header you have These branches and these branches come off the supply line going to whatever it is you’re cooling in this case I’m calling looks like some heat exchangers. And then so the fluids going out and it is picking up the heat energy coming back out of out into the warm line and that comes up and connects onto your return header. So supply hitter fluid goes down to your branch picks up, the heat comes back to your return header and then it continues on and all the way it goes all the way back along the line and then again, you have another filter bypass on the return side. And what that does is prevent any debris that you may have picked up from your process it prevents that from going into the chiller so that’s just a just a best practice there. And there you go. So that’s your that’s your whole process that’s inside the chiller and outside the chiller so I wanted to make sure you were back up to speed on that

I get approached from time to time from people looking for process chillers and as the cliche goes I know some guys and those guys are Indian Paul over at G and D chillers. If you’re an end user and OEM or reseller and you’re looking for a quality chiller to be designed in Ville Andean Paul are the go to guys for the chiller pros out there. GND has been designing and building chillers for over 25 years. And besides knowing what they’re doing, they’re honest and they go over and above to treat their customers right. So if you find yourself in need of a process chiller call GND at 800-555-0973 Make sure to ask for Andy or Paul and use the promo code chiller Pro, so they know that you’re one of our listeners, I love one of their tag lines to it says that they’re big enough to produce and small enough to care and that’s the for sure G and D again called G and D chillers asked for Andy or Paul use promo code chiller pro 800 105 550973 or check them out online at G D chillers.com. Forward slash chiller Pro. As I mentioned earlier,

I’m going to introduce you to two great tools for performing a design calculation for a system pump. The first of those tools I’m showing on the screen here is what I call the system design worksheet. Now what this tool is designed to do is to collect efficiently collect the information you need to from the site and the customer on what’s going on with this particular system. So this is really helpful whether you’re doing a design on a new system, you’re doing a chiller upgrade, and you need to figure out you know what size chiller you need, what pump you need in that chiller, or you’re in a troubleshooting scenario, where you’ve got a customer that all of a sudden is complaining of not getting any flow or pressure are enough to their process. So the first step in this whole thing is to collect the data. So this is pretty self explanatory. You know, you have your site information, your contact information, your project information. It’s got an area here for comments. And then you’re going to get some critical data about the operating conditions. So the first question is, what’s the coldest outdoor ambient? That question is actually more for a new chiller design for option selection. But it is important, you want to look at what percentage glycol they’re running, which you will have to have if you’re doing a double check on a system pump sizing. And then you also want to get the voltage and phase and again, that would be more applicable to a situation where you’re doing a replacement. However, if you’re doing a pump, change out a pump upgrade, it’d be really good to know that information right. So this is some good info. Now you may have your own series of questions, you can also expand on this. So this is just designed to collect the basic information that you need. Most importantly on this document is going to be this little miniature system layout. And this will be coming up again in a few minutes. When I go over the other tool I’m going to introduce you to the system sizer. So what you’re going to do here is you’re going to look at the values that need to be put in here. So this will give you if you have a system layout that has three different processes you’re cooling off one chiller, or up to three if you will. And it’s you want to collect some this critical info you want to know the distance between your chiller and the first drop number. When we went over that drug A few minutes ago, you have your supply header which is shown on this, this worksheet in blue and then your return header which is shown in red. So you want to measure the approximate distance you don’t have to get crazy about it just get approximate feet from the chiller location to your first load and then your first load your second and Your second to your third, if there are if the system has that. And then what you want to do is you want to get the operating conditions requirements of each branch. So that information may be a little difficult to get, you want to do your best you can, for example, if this is with a heat exchanger, usually that jobs a lot easier, as long as your customer happens to have the original run sheet on the heat exchanger, it’ll give you that information. But you’re going to have to plug some values in here, because this data, again is going to be transferred over to the Excel system sizer. So you’ll get that data which includes your maximum flow in GPM to that branch, your test your temperature to that load. In other words, what’s the approach temperature? What temperature does that particular branch require? Going to the process, estimated rise? So what’s the temperature rise at the design flow rate, one degree 10 degrees, whatever that is. Now, if you have an existing system, even if your pump is not working to spec, if you have the ability to measure that information in the field, that’s very helpful. That’s what you want to do if you can, if you have a live system to get that data, it’s very helpful. Pressure. So what pressure does this particular branch require in psi, the load pressure drop. So what’s your inlet pressure at your design flow rate and your outlet pressure hopefully have gauges on and again, this is service environment, the tolerance, so the particular load that’s on this branch, can it tolerate a half a degree temperature difference, two degrees 10 degrees, just depends on what it is the branch length, so you want to look at where your supply header is, whether it be on the ceiling or the floor, you want to measure the the length. So if you have a 30 foot ceiling, and that and your supply and return headers are up on top, and you know your your branch goes down the wall or up the wall, you want to get an ID on that length, and then you’re fitting count. Now the fitting count is helpful. However, if you don’t have that, when we get over to the system sizer, you’re going to see that I have a workaround for that because sometimes it’s difficult to get an accurate fitting count because you can’t see everything a lot of times. But if you have an idea on the approximate branch link, that I have a kind of a workaround in the system sizer for that. So that’s the main data you’re going to collect. Right down here, if you’re in a service environment, a service situation, this is an area here to get additional comments. So if your customer says something to you that, like when when they first started having this problem was is probably a big question to ask, When did they first notice, let’s say if it’s an existing chiller, then all of a sudden, you started having pressure or flow problems? Was there any event that happened? The other thing is, if the customer is thinking about expanding, then you that’d be a great place to look that look, make a note of that. In other words, they’re planning on adding some more tanks they’re planning on, you know, building on to the system in the future, that’s a great place to be in this area here at the bottom of the worksheet is a great place to put that information. What you’re looking at here is the Excel based system sizer tool. And this tool is I mentioned in the intro, I developed this about 10 years ago, because I was doing a lot of note taking and doing calculations on a yellow pad. And like you know what, there’s a lot of math here. And I think Excel could do this pretty well. So I took a lot of time to do this, but it really saved a lot of time. And I have a lot of contractors that really like this tool. Some of them don’t even use the worksheet, they just load this Excel based program up on their computer and they do it live in the field, you could definitely do that if you want to. Alright, so this is the homepage. And again, this is Excel based. So if you don’t have Excel on your computer, this isn’t gonna do a lot of good. So you have to make sure if you want to use this tool, you have to have Microsoft Excel, it’s a pretty old version of it, you can you know, you can load it up. Most Excel worksheets are backwards compatible, so you’ll be able to do this pretty easily.

Alright, so this is just the intro page. There’s links all over this thing. You have your site information conditions, processing input data output, the along the bottom of the screen here, there’s more than one way to get where you want to go. You’ll see that there’s there’s also tabs if you will at the bottom. I’m going to just go and use the main links here. So I’m going to I’m going to click the first link here that says site information. Now, just like the form right we collected all this information on the worksheet So we’re going to just take this information, put it in here, this information has absolutely nothing to do with the calculations. It’s just basically a way to identify who did this particular design for. So along the top here, I’ve also provided these breadcrumbs. But again, you can get to where you want to go by using the tabs on the bottom, it makes no difference. The next tab is our conditions tab. This is where you start to get into the important data that you need. So the Excel spreadsheet can perform all these computations in the background. The first question here, it’s asking for the coldest outdoor temperature. Remember, we asked that on the form, this will give us an idea of what options to select. And again, this really applies more to a new install design. So I’m just going to go ahead and put 10 degrees F doesn’t really matter. For this particular episode, we’re doing pumps sizing. So this, it’s not that big of a deal on this particular application. This one does, I’m gonna it’s asking us what the percentage of glycol for this design is going to be. This does have ramifications for your pump selection, because system size will make adjustments and offsets. Based on the glycol percentage, which is very, very helpful. You got to keep in mind that glycol mix with water has a different specific gravity, it’s thicker, it also changes depending on the temperature of your approach to your process. So system sizer will take its best shot at calculating those offsets when it’s when it’s calculating your feet of head for your pump. So I’m gonna just go ahead and select your 40%. Now we’re going to go to the process input. So this is where we put in all of the data for this particular site. And again, you have your chiller, you have your your drop one, two, and three, you have all your data, and I’ve just randomly selected some data, and you’ve got your distances from the chiller to load one, load one to Low to low to low three. So you put all this in in the different cells. Now I mentioned earlier about the fitting count. And I mentioned in your drop to from your main supply header to your process, sometimes you just don’t know the fitting count. So you’ll notice on the system sizer, we have these little hints whenever you see a little red triangle in a cell, when you roll over that, it’s going to give you a hint as to what it’s looking for. So specific to the branch count. What I did is I said in here that for every foot of drop, in other words from your supply and return headers down to your process, I’m figuring on one fitting, right. So if you have a 10 foot drop, you can have 10 fittings, that that’s just a good ballpark rule of thumb, if you will, that will be helpful. The next tab we’re going to get to is going to be your output. Now, we could go over a lot of stuff with this. But today I’m just looking at pumps. So you’ll notice that based on the information that you put on the process input, this is calculating that you have 25.3 gallons per minute flow requirement on the pump, and 83.88 feet of head. That is critical information when you go to select your pump. That’s a very helpful thing to have. That’s how you can use system sizer. And we’re going to go over this in a minute on this episode on how to apply with the data that we’re getting to determine if this pump that we currently have is not the right size for what we’re doing. So we’re going to cover that next

let’s create a hypothetical scenario that shows how to use the worksheet and the system sizer to figure out what’s going on with the customers system. Alright, so in this hypothetical, we have a client that has an existing chiller, it’s been running great for quite some time they have multiple loads connected up to it. And all of a sudden you get a service call and the chillers down. The customer typically won’t know why the chillers down unless they have in house facilities to look at it. So you show up out there and you find out the pumps been off for a while the chillers been off and the pump has tripped on internal overload or you have an external reset overload. So you go ahead and fire that pump back up. You stick your amp clamp on there and you find out wow, this thing is really over amping now, and that’s why it tripped in the first place. In the beginning of this episode, I suggested that you check out how to do a run out test. I have an episode on that. So that’s going to be the first thing you’re going to do. You’re going to fire that pump up and you’re going to do a run out test on it. And part of that run out test scenario. You need to find the pump curve on that pump. Now fortunately, we have these amazing smartphones available to us. And we can pull pump curves up very easy depending on your internet coverage. But you’ll have a copy of the pump curve. And I’m going to make that assumption as we go into this scenario here. So I’m going to say that you have done your run out test, and you have determined that that pump is indeed operating on its pump curve at zero flow. So that’s out of the way. And now we’re going to get into finding out what the heck’s going on here. Now, in the worksheet you’ve already gone through, you’ve done a quick rock work up on the site, you’ve determined all the distances, you’ve double check your requirements for each branch. And as you’re having a conversation with the customer, he just happens to mention that a couple of weeks ago, they just completed an expansion of the process, and they’ve added an additional load onto it. So there’s your highlight. That’s, that’s why you want to make a note of that and you go, Oh, alright, I see what’s happening here. So after you’ve collected your information on the new load, you’re going to go back and you’re going to plug that into system sizer. So what I’m going to do is I’ve created a system sizer copy of the file for as it was, and then I’ve created another copy of the system sizer tool, as how it is on upon the service call visit. So the first thing we’re going to look at here, this on the left pane here, I’m showing this on my screen. Again, those of you who are listening, make sure you get a chance to check out this episode on video if you can, because I think you’ll get a lot out of it. So what I’m showing you here is the output screen based on how the system was before the customer did the expansion. Now you probably wouldn’t have this but it just I want to highlight the how things can change when a customer does an expansion. So we have all the data in here. And the bottom line is system sizer says that before the expansion, the customer had 25.3 gallons per minute, and they had the total head feet or feet of head at 69.05. So we’re going to apply that to the pump curve that we have here. So let’s say the way it was, is 25 gallons per minute. So I have my cursor sitting here on the bottom scale here. And I’m going to run up on the pump curve here until we get to about 69 feet. So let’s just say in a hypothetical scenario, they have the E pump, which is a three quarter horsepower, centrifugal pump. And you’ll see that the old design the how it was before, falls really nicely in the middle of the pump curve. And that’s usually where you want to hang out. When you do a pump selection, you want to make sure that that pump is hanging, you want to select a pump where the design conditions are as close as possible, you’re not going to get it perfect every time. But you want to get as close as possible to the center of the curve. That way you know that the pump most likely you’re not going to be exceeding your service factor amps on the pump. So what I’m going to do now is I’m going to flip over and I’m going to just show you what the result of the system sizer was simply by adding the new data you’ve collected from the new site or excuse me, the same site, the expansion that the customer has just shared with you. Now what I have up on the screen is identical copy of the Excel file for this site. The only difference is I’ve added the design conditions for the new the third load that this client has put on this process, they haven’t changed the pump, all they did was they added additional load or another process onto their system. So we’ve got all the data in here, system sizes calculated based on the input, calculated, you know, the bth all the stuff for this new branch loan and it’s plugged it in. And it’s done all of its glycol offsets, it’s done everything. And now we have a flow requirement of 47.3 GPM so it’s gone up quite a bit. And our feet of head has gone up to 73.59. So if you look at that now what we’re doing, if you go here to flow at 47, almost 50 You’re gonna see that that that E pump, that three quarter horsepower pump that we were running, it’s it’s off the charts, the the flow alone is causing that, I mean, you’re basically sitting way at the very tail end of the curve. Now what that’ll do is it’s going to increase your amp draw, and I cover this in other episodes, but basically as you increase your flow through a centrifugal pump, your afterall goes up. That’s just how it operates. So what the customer did is they’ve added additional load, which is increased the demand for flow and They’ve probably made some changes to some of their valves and things like that just to try and get enough flow to this new load. And in that process, what they’ve done is the amount of flow going through the pump is gone up and up and up. And what they’ve done is they’ve exceeded the service factor amps on that pump. Most centrifugal pumps, if you look on the data tag, it’ll have an S F, or service factor amps written on there. And if you run above that, for a prolonged period of time that the further above you’re running that if the overloads are set correctly, the sooner you’re going to trip, that’s just how it is. So what we would have to do in this case is tell the customer that, look, we’ve done the calculations, and from what we can tell, the pump that’s in here is not capable of require of the requirements of your process now may have been before but not now. So this would be really great candidate to perform a pump replacement. Now the way you would do that is you would take your output from your system sizer tool, and you would go to your pump distributor, you’ll have to do a lot of you know, making sure that you find a pump that’s got approximate footprint, the same one might have to do some re plumbing, you might have to change your overloads and some wiring and your contactors. Because the amp draw on the new pump will be different. So you have some work to do. But the real important thing is you’ll provide your your pump distributor with the calculated feet of head and your calculated GPM flow rate. And they’ll be able to make a selection. Now I brought up something earlier real quickly when we were going over the worksheet. If you’re already going through the trouble of increasing a pump on an existing chiller, and you’re already doing your electrical work, probably have to upgrade, you may have to do some plumbing changes on it, it’s worth having that conversation with the customer Look, you’re paying for this pump upgrade already. I want to know from you as best you can.

Are you planning on any expansions and just kind of shut up and see what they say you may see their eyes roll a little bit, sometimes they’ll tell you I don’t know, you want to have a conversation with him look, I can at this point, I could probably oversize this pump and get away with it by 10%, or 15%. And you can you know you’re going to make this investment already. As long as the chiller is able to keep up with a cooling load, assuming they’re just adding another process on it’s not putting a lot of heat in you, you want to make sure you have that conversation with the customer. That could segue real well into another conversation about chiller capacity. So as you know, the system size will give you your bt u h as well. So this this whole thing over the pump and their plans for expansion may expand into wow, you know, you’re going to be paying 1000s of dollars to upgrade this pump. And if we if we upgrade the process, and you add additional pumping requirements, you’re going to be very, very close to the cooling capacity of this machine. So you know, you may want to figure out a way to run the new load intermittently with the other ones. And until you can afford replacing the entire chiller, which will give you a bigger pump because you’ll design that for them. And you’ll give them more capacity. So it’s just a really great time when you’re having conversations with customers about their pumps too small, and they’re making this investment. It’s a great time to have a conversation with him about potentially upgrading the entire system. Let’s do the mail. This question comes in from Alan Mahoney of Salt Lake City, Utah. Hey, Alan, as you guys know, what I do is I block questions as they come in. And then I try to wait until I have questions that line up with an episode. So this as you see will line up pretty darn well. When should I bring in a mechanical engineer to help with a system design? Great question. So what I found over the years Allen is small to medium size owners of processes. They tend to be resistant to hiring a mechanical engineer to do a design on on their application. It’s just it’s expensive, having an engineer get involved to do the job, right? They have to come out and collect information like we’ve done in this episode. They have to go back and do all their calculations. They have to if they’re going to stamp those designs, they have to spend a lot of time doing it. So there they can be pricey. It could cost several $1,000 To do a proper design for a client. What I suggest that you do is just use your common sense if you have a client that has an urgent need, they either can’t afford or just you have to get the system running You may want to do that design forum. I would be smart, though. And make sure that if you make a proposal to do a pump replacement or a chiller replacement based on the data you get from system sizer, I would definitely put some type of verbiage in your proposal that says, We have recommended that you get a qualified engineer to do this design work. And it’s up to you to verify all these numbers. And just just try to be smart and make sure that you have it clear that you recommended to the customer that you have that they have a mechanical engineer look at it. And they’ve declined to do so. However you do that you may also want to get some legal advice from a local attorney if you have one for your business, and get their opinion on how to properly Cover yourself. If a customer needs this design work done, but can’t pay for it. So that’s, that’s the only suggestion I can really give you, Alan. The second question comes from Michael Robertson out of San Antonio, Texas. Michael wants to know, if he should charge for design services on process chillers. And as a business owner, Michael, you have to make your own call on that. I really can’t tell you what to do on that front. Because it’s different for every scenario. What I can tell you is when I was a manufacturer, or even now, as a consultant, I always charged for my services. Now, the only exception that I would make would be back when I was a manufacturer, I would perform design consulting for clients, I would charge them for it. But I would always give them a qualifier. In the event that they end up purchasing a system from me, I would either credit back a portion or all of my design services with the business. So that’s something that you just have to make your own judgment call on. Alright, hopefully that answers that question.

If you guys have your own questions you’d like to submit to me, make sure you connect up with me on LinkedIn or send me an email M King at process chiller Academy COMM And I would be more than happy to read your question when it’s appropriate for a particular episode. And I always want to know your name and town name and town name and town. And if you don’t want your question, read on the podcast. Let me know and I’ll connect up with you one on one. If you do, I will definitely make my an effort to get your question asked on the show. Let’s have a look at this week’s words terms and quotes. This one comes from a man with very few words to say but they mean a lot. Mahatma Gandhi, a man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks he becomes. I hope that stimulates a little bit of thought. And I super enjoy these quotes. If you happen to have your favorite quotes, send me a message and I’d be happy to read them as part of the podcast. Before we wrap up this episode, I want to share with you some exciting stuff that we have going on in the process. Chiller Academy comm website. All of this stuff is happening on the technician resource page that I’m putting up on the screen now. So check it out, if you get a chance to watch this in video mode. The first thing I want to share with you is I’m super excited about this program. This is a skilled trade Success System. And I’ve developed this over the last 30 years. And what we’re doing to try it out is I’m putting together a five day free email course that covers the Success program. Now, this is not a technical course. Basically what I’m teaching you in this free course is the mindset and the habits that are needed to be successful in the industry. I cover technical excellence, I cover work ethic, I cover personal finance, although I don’t get into investing or anything like that. And I also cover the all important work life balance. The second thing I want to share with you is the courses that we have for sale on this page. Now right now we only have three we have maintenance, we have chiller system design, and we have basic refrigeration and troubleshooting of refrigeration systems. And for limited time I’m going to be offering 25% off any one of these courses. And all you have to do is use the promo code chiller pro at checkout and you’ll get you’ll get in the additional bonus that I’m offering to everybody out there is you’ll have access to me. So when you register for your course you’re going to get an email, and then emails can have a link to register for my office hours. So I dedicate a few hours each week to spend time with my students and help them through the course content and answer any refrigeration type questions that I possibly can. The other benefit is if you have stuff that’s outside my skill set, let’s say you need help and controls or You need help and boilers I’ve been in the business a very long time. So what I try to do doesn’t happen every time but what I’ll try to do is connect you up with some of the pros that I’ve worked with before that really know their stuff. So that’s one of the things that you will only get as a paid student. Now if you use the promo code you’re access to my office hours goes for a period of one year starting from when you purchase it. So you got a whole year of direct support one on one from me so hopefully that will help you out well, this episode of the process children Pro is a wrap as they say. Thanks so much for joining me today. I’m very much looking forward to developing relationship with you and seeing if I can help you in your career path as much as I possibly can. I’m looking forward to hearing from you on LinkedIn where I’m at most of the time I’m also on all the social networks. You can also send me emails at emptying at process chiller. academy.com and I will see you next week for our next installment of the process. Chiller pro podcast. You have a great week and go get them out there. I’ll talk to you soon.

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 0 / 5. Vote count: 0

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.