The Challenge

The Chilling Station Maintenance Supervisor, Charles Gardinier and the operators who work with him at the University of Texas at Austin are faced with the challenge of keeping several 5,000-ton chillers in peak operating condition. Part of their maintenance is cleaning the vessels to maintain high efficiency.

However, they were experiencing daily challenges with their previous machines breaking down every time they were used. According to Charles, the spinning cable tended to be the worst problem. Either the spring of the cable would break or the cable would kink, which would cost about $400 each time in parts and labor.

The operators also like to use a tighter brush and brush hard due to scale buildup. Getting a good clean on their chillers with their previous cleaning system was becoming a very difficult job.

Charles was looking for a reliable tube cleaner with brushes to handle their application that would enable his operators to efficiently clean tubes.

The Solution

The technicians used Elliott’s Die-Hard during a year-round cleaning season. The Die-Hard is a cableless tube cleaning system designed for light to medium deposits found in chiller, condenser and heat exchanger tubes.

Instead of using a rotating cable with a spinning brush, the Die-Hard utilizes water pressure to power the brushing action. This eliminated Charles’ need to constantly replace broken cables.

A pulse-jet actuator enables the brush to provide a quad cleaning action that quickly flushes tube debris such as scale, algae, and mud out of the tube.

The Results

“Operators like the tool a lot,” says Charles.

They immediately appreciated:

• Rugged engineering and construction of the Die-Hard and its brushes for a better clean, higher uptime, lower repair costs.
• Automatic feeding unit: Roughly the same automatic feeding speed as his older unit.
• No broken cables and very minimal maintenance required for Elliott’s Die-Hard.

“All we do is replace the consumable items due to wear and tear and the ruggedness and dependability of Elliott machines and hoses mean they last the whole, annual season,” said Charles. This means the University avoids the approximate $400 cost in parts and labor that would inevitably happen with each use of their previous machines.

The Elliott system is “much more reliable than our previous supplier’s and the Die-Hard’s brush with actuator does a lot better job cleaning our tubes.”

On top of the improvements in uptime and the more efficient cleaning of tubes with the Die-Hard, “Elliott’s service has always been good and reliable and replacement parts and consumables are available if we need them,” said Charles.

Charles is very pleased with his Die-Hard Tube Cleaner and the time and money that he has saved his operators and the University of Texas at Austin.