Commercial chillers so cold your filtration systems will stop working
I’ve been to a lot of recovery sites and seen all kinds of ice bath setups.
Some are amazing, but plenty are not so good.
And one of the first things I notice is the filtration issues.
Here’s a scenario I see all the time: a recovery room owner talks to a local pool guy—whether it’s an installer or a general filtration company—and 9 times out of 10, they’ll say, “Yep, I can do it.”
And they’ll give it a red-hot go based on what they know from swimming pools.
But the main road block is that the equipment they use just isn’t built for ice bath temperatures.
Take chlorinators.
They stop working properly as the water gets colder.
Once you hit that 10°C mark, most of them are only running at 5-10% efficiency.
That means your chemical management is all over the place, and the unit itself burns out a lot faster.
The other classic mistake is relying on those tiny canister filters that come attached to the chiller.
They’re designed to catch bigger things like dirt and hair, but they do next to nothing for the bacteria you really need to worry about.
I will say, having one of those canister filters and a struggling chlorinator is still far better than nothing.
But if you want to get things right from day one, avoid the headache of changing filters multiple times a day, and actually keep your water clean, you need to speak to a filtration company that has done this before.
I say this in every email when filtration comes up. We don’t sell filtration systems at Bergs.
We just know who the best in the business are, and we are always happy to connect people to them.
So the takeaway - filtration is something everyone will say they can do on ice baths, but very few can.
And it’s the kind of thing where you’re better to spend a bit more up front to avoid continuously spending along the way.
Any questions, as always, hit reply.
I’m happy to help