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Edition# 4 January 2011 
Expert Cooling Tower Repair Newsletter
Tower Topics
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The Mysterious Cooling Tower Ton

Last month the Refrigeration Ton was defined as 12,000 Btu/Hr.

Often, there is confusion over a similar term- the "Cooling Tower Ton" which is defined as 15,000 Btu/Hr.

Is this a conspiracy among cooling tower manufacturers to make their equipment appear more capable than it really is?

No, there's a simple explanation. Most towers are used for air conditioning with electrically driven chillers. The electric motors produce work on the refrigerant as they rotate the compressors essentially adding their horse power to the refrigerant. This 'Heat of Compression' adds directly to the heat being extracted from the space being cooled. This added heat is typically about 3,000Btu/Hr/Ton. The cooling tower, therefore, has to reject an additional 3,000 Btu/Hr for each 'ton' of refrigeration enjoyed by the occupied space.

So, when a cooling tower manufacturer says the cooling tower is good for 100 tons, he(she) means "Cooling Tower Tons" and that it is good for a system providing 100 Tons of cooling.

Don Davis
Expert Cooling Tower Repair, LLC