Companies are consistently looking for ways to save money and protect their facility management budgets. Operating and maintaining cooling systems can be significant expenses. Evaluating your water treatment costs is a great plan to help your bottom line, but you’ll want to be strategic when you do so. You don’t want to cut corners when you’re trying to cut costs.
Don’t Skimp on Quality
The saying “you get what you pay for” is accurate, especially when it comes to water treatment. Your process likely includes gathering bids from various service providers to find the best option. It can be tempting to choose the lowest bidder, but the cost and quality typically go hand-in-hand. Sometimes selecting the cheapest option can generate more expenses in the long run.
What should you watch out for? Water management companies lower their costs so they can lower their prices a few different ways:
- Less frequent monitoring of their customers’ equipment
- Less service and slow response times
- Cheaper, less-effective chemicals
- Lower-quality equipment for repairs and replacements
Any of these cost-cutting measures can put the long-term health of your system at risk, and the more there are, the greater the risk of everything from equipment failure to rising utility bills to Legionella outbreak. Is that worth the immediate cost savings?
Instead, Look for Other Savings Options
If your site uses a cooling tower, you might be able to get a credit on your sewer charges. Did you know that sewage charges aren’t based on the amount of wastewater leaving a building? Instead, the water utility company measures the amount of water entering your building and bases the charges on that. They assume that the amount of water going in must come out, and they charge based on that.
However, for buildings that use cooling towers, that assumption doesn’t hold true, and businesses could be overpaying.
Cooling towers remove heat through evaporation, which converts water into mist. This mist disappears through the air rather than through the drain and into the sewer. Every 10o F drop in temperature requires the evaporation of 1% of the recirculating water. Sites that use cooling towers could be overpaying hundreds of dollars on their sewer bills each month.
Are You Eligible for a Credit?
Contact your water company today to see if your site qualifies. You might need to install a deduct meter on the makeup line to your cooling tower. Doing so allows the water company to monitor how much water is going to the sewer, rather than simply measuring the water flowing into your building.
If you’d like more ideas on how to decrease your water treatment costs, contact us at Solid Blend. We’re here to help you with your water management needs.
