I live in a condo where we have water cooled 3 ton heat pumps for each unit. We have a large cooling tower on the roof. Our building is 25 years old and about a quarter mile from the beach in Florida.

My A/C shut down yesterday and when I restarted it it did the same after a few minutes. I found the water outlet to the cooling tower very hot. (It is usually about 105 degrees).

I removed the line and flushed the unit to a pail. A lot of what I would call sandy water came out of the heat exchanger. This has happened before. First, can I install a strainer/filter to prevent this? The lines to the A/C are 3/4 inch.

Should the cooling tower have a large filter on the run to the A/C units to prevent this? (The tower is about three years old).

I asked the manager and he thinks it is normal and is some kind of pipe scale...

Let me know what you think.

Thank You

caibuadday

they have strainer on the pump, but the hole (1/8 -1/4) is too large to stop the sand, they have smaller strainers for individual condenser.. the water treatment/strainer may be ineffective, yes there is always some scale in the water, but not enough ( it is wrong) to cause the compressor to tripout.. too much scale/bacterial in the water will cause the compressor to consume more power ,$$$