Ice Balls

Greetings,

I haven't had to deal with liquid pumps since my systems always used controlled pressure receivers to push liquid around. I have some now and they're giant balls of ice. Is it standard practice to not insulate a hermetic pump and let it form its own ice insulation?

-Iceman717

Hi Iceman 717
It is standard for the ice to form around the liquid pump hermetic or not.
And yes once in a while you may have to carefully remove some, particularly if you wish to isolate it for maintenance purposes.
The size is relative to saturated suction temp, Plant room humidity and how long they run.
It is indeed standard practise not to insulate the liquid pumps.
Grizzly

I thought so. We used decent insulators and I was pretty sure they did the right thing. Problem is now the weather is changing, Humidity and room temperature rising. The ice balls are self-adjusting and leaving large puddles of water on the floor. Considering I'm in a plant where they consider a few drops of water an emergency they're insisting that I get that ice off of there and get it done right. lol. Sorry, it is right. Put in a drain.

Hi ice.
Put in a drip tray and if necessary pipe the collected water away to outside.
But try and avoid drains inside the plant room.

I will explain more in a future post!

Allow the water to sit in the tray, wet vac it up if felt necessary.

But , as you say the ice build-up is in line with the humidity rise/ ambient temps.

I've found that ice-bound hermetic pumps assist with reducing cavitation on a hot pull-down.

Agree with Grizlee stay away from normal drain systems ive seen over 2000 people running out of a factory as the shaft seal of one pump colapsed aND THE DRAIN TOOK ALL THE LIQUID AMMONIA INTO the factory.
You can ask the insulators to fabricate a shell type insulation thats removeable for maintenance. Weve done a couple of them and if done right it works verry good. The motor should however bee inclosed in this shell and its wise to fit an IP65 rating motor.

Why did you install pumps if you had PUMPER DRUMS?

I loved my old dump tanks and controlled pressure receivers but we had an issue with the room they were in not meeting certain requirements to be a legal machinery room. We added a pump package in the other room with the screw compressors and relocated one small screw and, by doing so, satisfied a whole lot of codes and requirements.

Installing a drain system would cost ridiculously much anyway so that will never happen. I'll just get them to buy me a shop-vac.

Iceman717