Cooling Tower Basin Sweeping Effective In Preventing Legionnaires' Disease

FRESNO, Calif. - Sept. 4, 2015 - PRLog -- Cooling tower basins without effective filtration or good water treatment can be breeding grounds for Legionella and other bacteria. The American Society for Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has developed standards and guidelines to prevent the growth of Legionella, which includes cooling tower filtration.

ASHRAE Prevention Standards

Guideline 12 in the ASHRAE Handbook points out that..."Keeping the system clean reduces nutrients available for Legionella growth...(and) centrifugal gravity-type separators and bag-type filters can be used to assist in removal of debris.." Fighting Legionella is just one of the advantages of using a centrifugal separator to clean a cooling tower water system.

The newly published ASHRAE Standard 188 (Risk Management for Legionella) requires building owners to document a plan for regular inspections and maintenance of cooling towers. Section 7.2.3 b clearly states that this plan "shall include requirements and schedule for basin or remote sump cleaning." The three largest cooling manufacturers (BAC, Marley, and Evapco) all offer pre-installed basin sweeping piping configurations for their towers for ease of implementation.

The ASHRAE White Paper titled "Benefits of Cooling Water Filtration" explains even more benefits of Cooling Water filtration.

Prevention Case Study
Saint John's Hospital in Indiana has heard all the horror stories. Concerned with both the risk of Legionnaires' Disease and employee injury common to manually-cleaning cooling towers, the staff at Saint John's installed basin cleaning filtration on their cooling towers. The LAKOS system also made their water treatment more effective, requiring much less chemical use than before the filtration was installed. Says their mechanical team leader, "LAKOS basin sweeping is working extremely well. I can't imagine not having it."

Download the entire Case Study from the Legionella Prevention website and get more information about how cooling tower basin sweeping can reduce the risk of Legionella and make water treatment more effective.