Corrosion.

[romaurie]

An hotel built 10 years ago with 4 central systems, 2 plus, 2 minus. One 50 cubic meter -18c store 2 galvanized evaporators. 7 years on most of the evaporators were showing signs of corrosion. Rooms with salads in vinegar being the worst. But this freezer had by far the worst condition. The company I work for replaced the 2 coils with stainless steel coils. 3 years on these were showing signs of extreme corrosion. Green slime on the ceilings and walls. It looked like somink from Doctor Who! I told my service manager about it but he was invoved in a new project and didn't show any interest. This hotel is on a service contract so I was in there regularly to do repairs and preventive maintenance. 6 months after one of the central systems was very short of gas. I found a 1 & 3/8 inch vibration eliminator with a bad lesk and replaced it. When I finished I leak tested again and found a lot of gas in the air so as this system is 2 meters below ground level and relies on extact fans to change the air I decided to give it a couple of hours to clear. Well, that couple of hours turned into 2 days due to other service commitments.When I finally returned, the system was short of gas again and a lot of gas in the air in the plant room. I went outside the plant room to clear the leak detector and the flame turned purple. I found the leak was coming from a locked cold room. I got the key from the food and beverages manager, unlocked the room and stepped into a cloud of ***** R22! I rushed to the plant room and closed off the liquid line and phoned my company to bring over 10 bottles of R22. When the room had cleared a liitle, I went in and checked the evaporators. Both had corroded to such an extent that a number of 180 degree bends had "blown". Now this was the store we had replaced these 2 coils 3 years before. I managed to finally get my service manager to take a look. "thats corrosion" he said. And went back to his office to get on with his favorite new project! Now I remembered when this hotel was under constuction, I had seen a tunnel/corridor leding to the beach, about 150 meters away. I found a piece of plaster-board over the entrance. On the other side there was a channel with half meter deep sea water. When the door of the cold room was opened [5 meters from this channel] warm air was drawn into the room. Another minus 18oC cold room3 meters further showed no signs of corrosion. O.k. I had solved where the corrosion was coming from. We quoted and replaced these 2 coils again. Whle I was completing the installation a "delegation" from the hotel management came into the room. I started to explain to the hotel chain manager what had caused the problem and was silenced by one of the maintenace managers. He told me after "He dosent need to know that" . Now I made it perfectly clear to the maintenace management that if that obselete tunnel to the sea was not hermetically sealed, we would have more problems. We are now one year on, the tunnel has not been sealed, and there are signs of new corrosion. I say new corrosion because it took the stewards 2 days to clean off the green slime.
Now maybe I'm trying to "cover my arse" by posting this letter. I've been in this buisness for 22 years and have never seen anything close to this , Not even in Chinese restaraunts!

[SteveDixey]

Depends how much you value this contract IMHO and the supervisors response sounds like a case of "get out". With it being R22, you could have a case for pulling the plug on the system and saying if they don't like it, talk to HSE or the environment dept of the local council.

I know there is money to be made by dealing with customers like this, but there is also a risk that if something major happens, like a hotel employee getting asphixiated if a major leak occurs again, your bum is going to be on the line, and yes, you are right to cover it.

Steve

[US Iceman]

Perhaps you send a polite letter to the hotel management on your company stationary. I would also ask one of your company's directors to be the one to send the letter. This would be more "official" rather than a public letter in a forum.

This is a condition where someone can suffocate.

[chemi-cool]

Hi romaurie
please give me a call at 054-7738801
I'm coming down soon.

Chemi

[tonto]

Might be an idea as well to recommend to install a wall mounted leak detector in the room to monitor gas leakage if any.....