FAQs

Go to www.TowerTechInc.com and click Publications on the menu bar to find a PDF version of our current Series Modular Cooling Tower Installation, Operation & Maintenance Manual. Review the maintenance section (Chapter 10) to see if it contains the information you need. If not, contact our service department by FAX (405) 979-2180, TEL (405) 979-2123, or EMAIL Service@TowerTechInc.com. Before you contact us please write down the following information from your cooling tower’s nameplate: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Also, our service department will need to know the street address where the tower is located, the name of the company that is using the tower, as well as your name, title, company name, phone number, fax number, and email address.

Cooling tower modules can be provided with optional basin heaters. The kit includes a control panel (NEMA 4X), a temperature sensor, heating elements (6 KW ea.), and factory-mounted service ports in the tower module for the sensor probe and heating elements. Each tower module must have its own dedicated control panel and sensor. Each controller can handle up to four (4) individual heating elements. The control panel, sensor, and heating elements are shipped loose with the tower module sump and must be field mounted and wired by the local contractor. A power supply independent of the tower fan motor power is recommended.

Our local sales partner can usually assist you in finding a local Authorized Service Provider. To find our sales partner in your area go to www.TowerTechInc.com and click “Find Sales Partner” on the Home Page. If we have no sales partner in your area, please contact our service department: TEL (405) 979-2123, EMAIL Service@TowerTechInc.com, FAX (405) 979-2180. Before you contact us, please write down the following information from your cooling tower’s nameplate: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Our service department will also need to know the street address where the tower is located, the name of the company that is using the tower, as well as your name, title, company name, phone number, fax number, and email address.

Our local sales partner should be able to assist you with replacement parts. To find our sales partner in your area go to www.TowerTechInc.com and click “Find Sales Partner” on the Home Page. If we have no sales partner in your area, please contact our parts department: TEL (405) 290-7788, EMAIL Service@TowerTechInc.com; or FAX (405) 979-2180. Before you contact us, please write down the following information from your cooling tower’s nameplate: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Our parts department will also need to know the street address where the tower is located, the name of the company that is using the tower, as well as your name, title, company name, phone number, fax number, and email address.

Each quotation includes part numbers, part descriptions, parts prices, parts availability, and a unique quote number. After you review our quote please provide an approval signature at the bottom of the quote form, indicate the payment method, and fax or email it to your parts sales representative at Tower Tech’s Oklahoma City offices. (If you have any comments, additions, or deletions, please note them on the form.) Parts will be shipped after we receive your approved order and any applicable deposit payment (or establish credit).

You may purchase parts with a credit card, check, or credit terms (credit requires pre-approval). A 50% deposit may be required due to the specialized nature of certain parts.

Some parts are common stock items such as Rotary Spray Nozzles, valves, flanges, and hardware that can be ready for shipment within one to three working days. Other, more specialized, parts such as motors, fans, fill media, drift eliminators, and water collectors may have a longer lead-time if they must be manufactured or special ordered for your specific tower. It is always best to plan ahead and get your order in before your situation becomes critical.

Tower Tech’s parts sales representatives are quite knowledgeable of the design idiosyncrasies of our various tower models. In many cases, details can be pulled from Tower Tech’s customer database that will provide the information needed.

Our towers are equipped with standard pre-wiring from the motor to a junction box or optional individual rotary disconnect switches. Our optional control panel (available with or without a temperature controller) typically is shipped with the tower on a separate pallet. The panel must be field installed by your local contractor who connects the individual motor starters to the junction box or rotary disconnects.

The simplest solution is a stand-alone system with a single VFD supplying input to our optional motor control panel. The motor control panel is available with an optional analog output module to supply either 4-20 mA or 0-10 volt output speed control to the VFD. The optional control panel can be equipped with a pre-programmed Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), single-point wiring to a face-mounted disconnect, individual motor starters with magnetic and thermal overload protection, face-mounted HOA switches for each fan motor, and a RTD temperature sensor for remote mounting in a thermal well in the tower’s discharge piping. If the VFD is installed with a line voltage bypass, an auxiliary contact on the bypass contactor will tell the PLC to take control of the fans using fan cycling to control outlet temperature. In cases where a Building Management System (BMS) is to be used to control and monitor the condenser water system, we recommend that temperature sensors and control outputs for the VFD be provided by the BMS. The output of the VFD is fed to the single-point disconnect in the optional control panel and a dry contact in the VFD tells the control panel to energize all of the motor starters. As above, when the VFD is in bypass mode the PLC takes control through its own temperature sensor and setpoint to control tower outlet water temperature through fan cycling in a stand-alone system.

The VFD should be sized for maximum motor current (MMC), not for horsepower. For example, a Tower Tech TTXL-081975 tower has eight 7.5-HP eight-pole 460V motors, and each motor has a FLA of 12.6 amps plus an amp service factor of 1.5 amps. To calculate MMC, add the amp service factor to FLA. The VFD for the above tower should be sized for 112.8 amps (12.6 + 1.5 x 8 = 112.8). Our TTXL Series Technical Reference Guide gives the correct MMC for each of our cooling tower models.

The optional motor control panel is ‘ready’ for VFD application and stand-alone fan cycling control where the VFD does not require an input speed control from the PLC. If the PLC is used for speed control, an optional plug-in analog output module must be added to the PLC, in which case all necessary terminal points will be provided for proper interface wiring between the VFD and the motor control panel.

In most cases, it is not necessary to have make-up or overflow connection on the cooling tower when tower return water is gravity feeding a remote aux tank/reservoir. However, you will still need to add make-up water somewhere in the cooling tower loop in order to replace water lost to evaporation, blowdown, and drift. We recommend that you install a level sensor in the aux tank or reservoir to add make-up water. No overflow should be required if the tower will gravity feed into a remote aux tank or in-ground reservoir. Note: The remote aux tank or in-ground reservoir should have sufficient capacity to hold the tower shutdown water; if not, you need to find a way within the recirculating water loop to contain (or allow overflow of) excess shutdown water.

The ‘standard’ lead-time for Tower Tech to perform service work is four to six weeks from the receipt of a customer’s P.O. and our agreement on terms and conditions. We can shorten this lead-time at times, and we are working to shorten this lead-time by increasing the number of factory-trained independent service companies available to respond to service calls.

Depending on the time of year you call, we can usually offer immediate service on all models of our Modular Cooling Tower. However, during our busy season (from March to July) our service technicians are often scheduled four to six weeks in advance.

We can diagnose many problems by telephone the same day we receive your call, provided you give us the following information about the tower: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Our ability to conduct on-site diagnostics depends on the severity of your situation and the response determined by our telephone discussion with you. Typically, we can have one of our service technicians at your job site (within the U.S.) within three normal business days to diagnose the situation further and develop a plan of action to resolve the problem.

Yes, Tower Tech offers long-term preventative maintenance plans. Our PM Service Agreement is available on a one-year, three-year, or five-year basis. The plans include an initial thorough inspection, preventative maintenance service, and a semi-annual inspection of your tower per year (up to one “inspection day” per tower) for the life of the PM Service Agreement unless otherwise specified.

We aim to satisfy each and every customer completely, and we are always available to address customers’ reasonable requests. We generally prefer to inspect a tower thoroughly before we submit a quote for service work, as our inspection reduces the possibility of discovering unforeseen problems later. A thorough inspection also allows our service technicians to bring to your job site all of the parts and appropriate equipment and tools to complete your job efficiently.

The internal reservoir in a Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower is “right-sized” to allow efficient operation in virtually any application. While it is true that reservoir capacity is less than some other tower designs, ample capacity remains to allow for normal tower startup and shutdown procedures. When multiple tower modules are required, we recommend a staged startup and/or shutdown procedure as described in our Installation, Operation & Maintenance Manual. We further recommend that on installation the piping contractor install an isolation valve at the tower hot water inlet and a check/shutoff valve in the tower outlet piping. Benefits of right-sizing a cooling tower’s internal reservoir include reduced tower operating weight and reduced tower system volume. The impact of low operating weight is apparent. Reduced system volume reduces blowdown volume, make-up water requirements, and water treatment costs.