In the last email, we broke down what a chiller's kilowatt (kW) rating means.
It's a direct measure of how much heat a chiller can remove from the water.
Now, for the most important part.
The kilowatt rating advertised for 99% of chillers on the market is wildly inaccurate.
Chiller performance is tested in a lab under specific conditions.
The problem is, those conditions have nothing to do with the reality of running an ice bath in Australia.
Most of the chillers sold here are designed and tested in factories where the standard test is to cool water down to 28°C with an ambient air temperature of 25°C.
This makes the advertised kW rating completely irrelevant for two reasons.
First, no one runs a 28°C ice bath.
Second, performance drops dramatically as the target water temperature gets colder.
That same chiller has to work much harder to get water to 10°C, let alone 5°C.
The result is a chiller advertised with a 30 kW rating might only deliver 3 kW of actual cooling power when it's trying to get your water to 10°C on a normal day.
Now, add in Australian conditions.
What happens on a 35°C or 40°C summer day?
The chiller's performance collapses.
It can't get rid of its own heat, leaving almost no capacity to cool your water.
This is why so many "commercial" chillers fail during a busy summer.
They were never designed to perform in the conditions they're being sold into.
Our chillers are designed and rated for reality.
Our stated kilowatt output is based on cooling water to low single-digit temperatures in high Australian ambient heat.
So when you're comparing spec sheets, don't just look at the kW number.
Ask for the performance data at the water temperature you need, and the air temperature your facility will experience.
The answer will tell you everything.
If you want to see the real-world performance data for our chillers, hit reply and we'll send it over.