Ice Rinks

[Andy]

Just a little thought, do any of you guys out there work on rink chillers, they are becoming more common here in the UK.
I predict that we will soon have or own brand of Engineers that work at nothing else.
What do our American cousins call them?
Rink Rats?

[Andy]

Hi,
I thought it would be a good idea to post a picture of a Rink Plant, just to let the commercial guys see what a real plant looks like.
The photo is of a Canadian plant fitted in N. Ireland. In the fore ground can be seen two of the three compressors, in the back ground is the shell and tube chiller complete with a iquid separation vessel on top. The whole skid is 45' long, with the chiller containing just under a 2000lbs of NH3 refrigerant. From memory the plant has an installed capacity of700Kw, with one compressor as standby only.
Regards. Andy

[Andy]

Hi,all
I see a good number of peopl have had a look at the Arena Pack photo.
No takers for having worked at these plants, maybe the commercial guys are to chicken admit they haven't seen plant like this before
Regards. Andy

[Derek]

Hi Andy

There's two rinks a bit south (120km) from you. I visited the less successful of the two a few years back and I have the photo's but releasing them may be a legal issue. Enough to say that your pic is the cleanest rink pack I ever did see.

Until they pulled our local rink down it was typical of the time. Two J.E.Halls compressors running on R22 (lots of it). 2 circulating pumps per pack running almost neat glycol through the rink network.

Compressors were circa 1950 and using 20 to 30 kg of R22 per month. Most had gland problems and dumped oil in a similar way to my old BSA but in a much larger scale say 2-3 lt per day.

The Glycol pumps were almost porous with fluid popping out everywhere and ice build up running back from the rink surface didn't help the seals. The floor was a mess of oil, glycol and icy condensate.

What is amazing is that they still worked at all a credit to the original designers.

To be cost efficient they had to run 18hours a day minimum every day. There was no standby and profits were low, maintenance was on breakdown only. They all knew that the rink would 'dome' eventually.

As to the rink in the south don't bother popping in the plant room for a sneak peek the Dobermans looked very hungry!

[Andy]

Hi, Derek,
That rink pack I posted the photo of is quite a tidy example, built and installed by one of our rivals Cimco. I was involved in the comissioning of the plant about two year ago before I started working for Star. Having said the plant was installed two years ago the photo was taken last week.
Been missing for a few days as I was over at head office in Glasgow, where I obtained a photo of the smallest rink pack I have ever seen, will post some day soon for all to see.
Nice hearing from you Derek.
Regards. Andy.

[shaun spencer]

used to work for Cimco, just a mechanic, no change of name name, service a rink one day, meat plant next day, then a mcdonalds

do supermarkets and test chambers now. makes life interesting to do alot of different crap

[Andy]

Hi, Shaun
I only know a couple of guys in Cimco, Russ the over-seas service manager and Mark W the mechanic who set up that rink pack.
Company seemed OK to me, but then I wasn't working for them.
Nice to hear from you, I was in the Hamilton area this time three years ago and you were having a heat wave. Hope the weather is not too hot (lot's of calls).
Regards. Andy

[Andy]

Hi, Derek
I have attached a little rink pack which was under construction whilst I was visiting head office.
The compressors are two 30Hp bitzers running on R404a with a low pressure receiver and a titanium plated heat exchanger (quite expensive) for the brine that is pumped around the original system, I think the small size is due to the rink being one of those small curling rinks.
Sorry about the mess as I was saying the unit is just under construction. I hope to have some finished photos of this plant and it's bigger brother which is being built as I speak.
Regards. Andy

[condenseddave]

I thought maybe I had the smallest rink here. I take care of a "seasonal" rink here in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. I don't have pix, currently, but I promise to get some up soon.

The rink in question is actually an indoor tennis court that becomes a rink in mid-November through late April. The chiller is a Patterson-Kelly barrel, with a Carlysle 5h60 compressor. Actually, it uses the 60 tons for the rink down season, when it serves its other purpose as a comfort cooling plant for the main hotel.

The rink requires 31.5 tons of refrigeration!

That's right, isolation valves, and two sets of controls. Summer, the barrel's at 41ºF, and winter, it's at 9ºF!

A guy takes out the garden hose, sprays down the floor, then they have a miniature zamboni that they drive out of an attached shed, built just for the zamboni!

Takes about four hours to change over.

It's been up and running nearly forty years, now.

[Norty]

I've been doing some ice rinks for about 5 years now. My company builds the refrigeration portion and another installs it. The majority of the racks use R-22 and a shell in tube chiller barrel cooling 40% Ethylene Glycol. We've built some flooded units also with R-22 and R-507. Typical packages range is tonnage from 24.1 to 212 tons.

Norty

[Andy]

Hi, Norty
nice to hear from you. I notice your company does not fit NH3 packs. Most of ours are NH3, except where we have to fit ***** for a safety reasons.
Keep up the good work, Regards. Andy.

[Norty]

It seems in the Midwest US, there isn't a big calling for NH3. I believe to many regulations and too many people are afraid of it. Too bad, since it's better than the *****s we use from an efficiency and cost standpoint. We build supermarket racks too and I haven't had anyone ask for NH3 on that either.

Norty

[Andy]

Hi, Norty
I know that a few supermarkets in the U.K. went NH3 on wet systems, basically glycol/brine chiller with warm brine off the discharge desuperheaters used for defrosting purposes.

One of our rival industrial fridge companies fitted a number of these, some of these packages gave a problems on the oil cooling side and were shipped back to our factory for refit.

We fit some of these wet systems on the chill side in Regional Distribution Centers for a number of the large supermarket chains, again where direct/pumped NH3 would be a safety issue.

Regards. Andy

[J.D]

Hi Andy

I work for Cimco on the east coast. We do a lot of rink work as well as process refrigeration. Have you seen one of our rink packages that uses a PHE for the chiller?

I hear that Mycom compressors aren't widely used in the UK, is that so? You will find Mycom machines on most of our recip. packages.

J.D.

[Andy]

Hi, JD,
nope never seen one yours with a PHE evaporator, but our own use plates with low pressure receivers.
Mycoms are not that common in the UK, but common in Ireland due to their use by a local contractor.
Nice to hear from you, regards, Andy

[Dave Goodings]

Alright Andy
I used to work for a company that where a dealer for mycoms and I have seen a few with snapped shafts I once went into a plant room and found the drive pulley the other end of the plant room when we had the shafts analysed for metal fatigue we found they were made with scrap steel [Made in Japan] they were an old design that are just speeded up to get more duty out of them that was the recips, I once stripped down a compressor and had it all laid out for a rep in Belguim to come and inspect he spoke very poor english and asked for a big crate and everything got shot in I thought the Japs would teach us something LOL!!!!! they may be better now though???
Regards Dave

[J.D]

The machines that were built for Mycom in Mexico were crap. The only broken Mycom cranks that I've seen were after the crank had been built up and resurfaced in a machine shop. Saw 2 of these fail.

J.D.

[Andy]

Hi,
the Mycom WB compressors were originally a J E Hall product, when the patent ran out the company in Japan continued making the compressors for Mycom instead. The only differance to look at was an improved valve design, more springs and a few other things. The real differance was the quality of the material. Valve that lasted 20 k hrs now do 10 k and everything just wears a lot quicker.
I have a site with two Halls recips and a Mycom in a row, all look the same, but the Halls version needs far less parts.
JE Hall always over engineer their equipment. This is something which can be good for the customer in the long term, but poor if you are trying to sell plant price wise.
Regards. Andy

[wesmax]

Originally posted by Andy
Hi,all
I see a good number of peopl have had a look at the Arena Pack photo.
No takers for having worked at these plants, maybe the commercial guys are to chicken admit they haven't seen plant like this before
Regards. Andy

Just a note here I worked for CIMCO for many years and owned a company that did rinks all over the us and Canada I have many pictures hope to see more.

Wes Maxfield CM

[wesmax]

Originally posted by Andy
Hi,all
I see a good number of peopl have had a look at the Arena Pack photo.
No takers for having worked at these plants, maybe the commercial guys are to chicken admit they haven't seen plant like this before
Regards. Andy

Just a note here I worked for CIMCO for many years and owned a company that did rinks all over the us and Canada I have many pictures hope to see more.

Wes Maxfield CM

[wesmax]

Originally posted by Andy
Hi,all
I see a good number of peopl have had a look at the Arena Pack photo.
No takers for having worked at these plants, maybe the commercial guys are to chicken admit they haven't seen plant like this before
Regards. Andy

Just a note here I worked for CIMCO for many years and owned a company that did rinks all over the us and Canada I have many pictures hope to see more.

Wes Maxfield CM

[Andy]

Hi Wes, nice to hear from you.
Was it Cimco you worked for or Toromont, they work out of Alberta don't they
Regards. Andy

[wesmax]

Originally posted by Andy
Hi Wes, nice to hear from you.
Was it Cimco you worked for or Toromont, they work out of Alberta don't they
Regards. Andy

Here in Alberta Tormont works only on Gas Compression not refrigeration , and CIMCO only works on the refrigeration although they both will have an office in the same city, and I only worked on refrigeration and rinks with some liquification packs
most of the N2 is now done without mechical refrigeration.
Rinks was my first love.

Wes Maxfield CM

[master rinktec]

Hi Andy,

I am service and installation manager for a rink builder. Our approach to rink refrigeration is small horsepower compressors staged at 1 degree intervals. Using a dual circuit system gives redundancy(basically two complete refrigeration systems on one frame). ***** is the refrigerant of choice, although we also do the occasional ammonia system if the customer really wants it. ***** and Glycol have more than enough capacity without all the risks of ammonia. The system cost is also more reasonable with ***** being easier to install. A large ammonia leak in an ice rink with children in the facility would be a public relations nightmare.

[frank]

A large ammonia leak in an ice rink with children in the facility would be a public relations nightmare.

The only ice rink system I've seen had the ammonia in the plant room and the rink served by a secondary refrigerant. Do they actually send ammonia directly to the rink?

[master rinktec]

There are a number of direct rinks still out there but i believe that r-22 was primarily used. We are using Calcium Chloride as the secondary refrigerant in the Ammonia system. Ethylene Glycol is usually used in the ***** systems.

[mcamacho]

Ice rinks are not so popular around here, but we have done a couple that have been working for over 25 years. They have NH3 piston compressors, flooded chillers, and use calcium chloride as secondary coolant.

[charlie n]

The only ice rink system I've seen had the ammonia in the plant room and the rink served by a secondary refrigerant. Do they actually send ammonia directly to the rink?

Direct recirculated rinks were built in Canada many years ago. these were mainly outdoor facilities. This method is still used for large outdoor surfaces (luge & bobsled runs)
We are building ammonia/Cacl2 systems using Plate heat exchangers. the advantages of close approach temperatures and low charge far outweigh the higher first cost when compared to shell and tube chillers.
A typical 250 to 300 kW system only contains 75 kg of ammonia.

[samlee12]

Hey Andy hows it going? I work for Cimco in New Brunswick, Canada. 90 % of my work is on ice rinks and curling rinks. I work on alot of rink packs just like your picture. Most of them are nh3 systems using several Mycom recips. Some use flooded chiller others use heat exchanger with surge drum all of them use brine mixture as secondary refrigerant some of the smaller curling rinks have r22 package system. These systems are so common where im from ,i service approx. 40 rinks. I could get tons of pictures but will have to ask permission first.Would be pleased to answer any questions.

[sterl]

Worked for Cimco in Toronto 1975 to 1978. Provincial lottery was funding rinks in every little town, places with a population of 500 or so got an 8-month rink Formula: (2) little Mycoms plus 16" by 10 or 12-ft S & T Chiller, CaCl2 Brine, evap condenser, remote sump, 20-hp pump, 650 to 750 Usgpm brine flow, 10-deg. F. SET, brine split 20 to 18. Cookie cutter...Did so many then I can still do the bill of material for a complete rink by memory, only variables were the electrical source, the floor thickness and construction, the location of the condenser and the brine pipe run...

City of Toronto and others had municipal code that called for every rink to be steel floor, direct refrigerant circulation, no secondary fluids. Maple Leaf Gardens was that way at the time, had been since the 1930's and was not a building where 17000 people could escape with any expedience.