Starting the Monster Chiller (April 10, 2007)

At my old workplace, we spent all winter servicing the chillers on campus. This massive old Trane chiller in one of the older buildings is a beast, and waking it up in the spring is quite the ordeal! To tell you the truth, this thing scared the $#!+ out of me!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Chiller
• Trane
• big
• beast
• huge
• giant
• old
• ton
• R-22

[theduke502]

@W7ENK How do these things work? Is this a water chiller?

[W7ENK]

@theduke502 Yes, it is a chiller for water. The cold water it produces is used for cooling A/C in a building air handler.

[theduke502]

@W7ENK Hm interesting. I used to wonder what kind of A/C unit large businesses use. I imagine that the water goes to a de-humidifier process to separate moisture from the water no?

[W7ENK]

@theduke502 I couldn't tell you on specifics like that, I have no idea.  I'd imagine it would?

[conherent]

How Many RTon is it?

[W7ENK]

@conherent No idea, sorry.

[hyvahyva]

Heh, it looks like a ginormous turbocharger... and, well, kinda sounds like one too :D

[kagome122885]

I love that awesome start up sound at 1:23!

[dshmechanic]

Gave me the chills.....

[mdeonx16]

@theduke502 You can't separate water from moisture, they're the same thing. Though, in a system like this, the chilled water is sent through the cooling coils (like a radiator in a car, only it's giving off cold air) and the moisture in the air collects as condensate on the coils and drips down into the condensate pan and the drains.

[mdeonx16]

How many tons cooling capacity??????? Must be staggering

[theduke502]

@theduke502 Hm very interesting. Thank you for the input ;)

[rd1027]

@theduke502 Big chillers like this use the same refrigeration cycle (on a much larger scale) that any other AC or refrigerator would.

[theduke502]

@W7ENK LOL, it's okay. I find large equipment like that pretty fascinating. What is even more fascinating is watching crane operators setting large equipment on top of tall buildings. Talk about getting goosebumps, lol.