Frequently Asked Questions


Q: How can I obtain a replacement Operation & Maintenance Manual for my Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower?
A: Go to www.TowerTechInc.com and click “Publications” on the menu bar to find a PDF version of our current Series Modular Cooling Tower Installation, Operation & Maintenance Manual. Review the maintenance section (Chapter 10) to see if it contains the information you need. If not, contact our service department by FAX (405) 979-2180, TEL (405) 979-2123, or EMAIL Service@TowerTechInc.com. Before you contact us please write down the following information from your cooling tower’s nameplate: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Also, our service department will need to know the street address where the tower is located, the name of the company that is using the tower, as well as your name, title, company name, phone number, fax number, and email address.

Q: What prevents off-line modules from freezing during cold weather?
A: Cooling tower modules can be provided with optional basin heaters. The kit includes a control panel (NEMA 4X), a temperature sensor, heating elements (6 KW ea.), and factory mounted service ports in the tower module for the sensor probe and heating elements. Each tower module must have its own dedicated control panel and sensor. Each controller can handle up to four (4) individual heating elements. The control panel, sensor, and heating elements are shipped loose with the tower module sump, and must be field mounted and wired by the local contractor. A power supply independent of the tower fan motor power is recommended.


Q: Who should I contact to arrange for Tower Tech or a third party service company to repair, service, or perform preventive maintenance on my Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower?
A: Our local sales partner can usually assist you in finding a local Authorized Service Provider. To find our sales partner in your area go to www.TowerTechInc.com and click “Find Sales Partner” on the menu bar. If we have no sales partner in your area please contact our service department: TEL (405) 979-2123, EMAIL Service@TowerTechInc.com, FAX (405) 979-2180. Before you contact us please write down the following information from your cooling tower’s nameplate: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Our service department will also need to know the street address where the tower is located, the name of the company that is using the tower, as well as your name, title, company name, phone number, fax number, and email address.

Q: Who should I contact to buy replacement parts for my Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower?
A: Our local sales partner should be able to assist you with replacement parts. To find our sales partner in your area go to www.TowerTechInc.com and click “Find Sales Partner” on the menu bar. If we have no sales partner in your area please contact our parts department: TEL (405) 979-2123, EMAIL Service@TowerTechInc.com; or FAX (405) 979-2180. Before you contact us please write down the following information from your cooling tower’s nameplate: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Our parts department will also need to know the street address where the tower is located, the name of the company that is using the tower, as well as your name, title, company name, phone number, fax number, and email address.

Q: I heard that Tower Tech went bankrupt. Is this true, and if so what is the company’s status now?
A: From 1993 to 2000 the company accumulated more than $23 million of R&D-related indebtedness. Also, in 1999 the company introduced a now-discontinued product line that had higher-than-normal warranty claims, which aggravated the situation. In September 2000 the company’s founder and then CEO/chairman resigned and a new CEO was elected. On December 19, 2000, Tower Tech sought protection from creditors by filing voluntary Chapter 11 reorganization petition with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Within days Tower Tech had obtained new financing from a group of former creditors, allowing the company to continue to operate throughout its reorganization process. The company’s new management’s plan of reorganization was approved by creditors and shareholders in October 2001, and the company successfully emerged from the reorganization process on February 1, 2002, and was simultaneously recapitalized by a group of former investors and creditors. “New Tower Tech” has strong governance that is committed to customer satisfaction, product quality, and corporate stability.

Q: What is Tower Tech’s procedure for processing a request for parts quotation?
A: Each quotation includes part numbers, part descriptions, parts prices, and parts availability, and a unique quote number. After you review our quote please provide an approval signature at the bottom of the quote form, indicate payment method, and fax or email it to your parts sales representative at Tower Tech’s Oklahoma City offices. (If you have any comments, additions, or deletions, please note them on the form.) Parts will be shipped after we receive your approved order and any applicable deposit payment (or establish credit).

Q: What payment options are available when I buy parts from Tower Tech?
A: You may purchase parts with a credit card, check, or credit terms (credit requires pre-approval). A 50% deposit may be required due to the specialized nature of certain parts.

Q: Are replacement parts available for immediate shipment?
A: Some parts are common stock items such as Rotary Spray Nozzles, valves, flanges, and hardware can be ready for shipment within one to three working days. Other, more specialized, parts such as motors, fans, fill media, drift eliminators, and water collectors may have a longer lead-time if they must be manufactured or special ordered for your specific tower. It is always best to plan ahead and get your order in before your situation becomes critical.

Q: If I don’t have all the information about the cooling tower readily available, or if I am unsure which parts I need, will someone still be able to help me?
A: Tower Tech’s parts sales representatives are quite knowledgeable of the design idiosyncrasies of our various tower models. In many cases, details can be pulled from Tower Tech’s customer database that will provide the information needed.

Q: Is a Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower pre-wired to a motor control panel?
A: Our towers are equipped with standard pre-wiring from the motor to a junction box or optional individual rotary disconnect switches. Our optional control panel (available with or without temperature controller) typically is shipped with the tower on a separate pallet. The panel must be field installed by your local contractor who connects the individual motor starters to the junction box or rotary disconnects.

Q: How should I apply variable-frequency drive/s (VFD/s) to a Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower?
A: The simplest solution is a stand-alone system with a single VFD supplying input to our optional motor control panel. The motor control panel is available with an optional analog output module to supply either 4-20 mA or 0-10 volt output speed control to the VFD. The optional control panel can be equipped with a pre-programmed Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), single point wiring to a face-mounted disconnect, individual motor starters with magnetic and thermal overload protection, face-mounted HOA switches for each fan motor, and a RTD temperature sensor for remote mounting in a thermal well in the tower's discharge piping. If the VFD is installed with a line voltage bypass, an auxiliary contact on the bypass contactor will tell the PLC to take control of the fans using fan cycling to control outlet temperature. In cases where a Building Management System (BMS) is to be used to control and monitor the condenser water system, we recommend that temperature sensors and control outputs for the VFD be provided by the BMS. The output of the VFD is fed to the single-point disconnect in the optional control panel and a dry contact in the VFD tells the control panel to energize all of the motor starters. As above, when the VFD is in bypass mode the PLC takes control through its own temperature sensor and setpoint to control tower outlet water temperature through fan cycling in a stand-alone system.

Q: How do I go about sizing a VFD for a Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower?
A: The VFD’s size must be based on full load amps (FLA) including the motor service factor. For example, a Tower Tech TTXL-081975 tower module has eight 7.5 horsepower motors, each with a FLA of 12 amps at 480 volts. Adding the 1.15 service factor results in 110.4 full load amps, therefore the VFD should be sized to support 110.4 FLA.

Q: From the standpoint of the motor control panel, what does “VFD Ready” mean?
A: The optional motor control panel is "ready" for VFD application and stand-alone fan cycling control where the VFD does not require an input speed control from the PLC. If the PLC is used for speed control, an optional plug-in analog output module must be added to the PLC, in which case all necessary terminal points will be provided for proper interface wiring between the VFD and the motor control panel.

Q: Does a Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower require make-up and overflow connections if return cold water will gravity feed a remote auxiliary tank or in-ground reservoir?
A: In most cases it is not necessary to have a make-up or overflow connection on the cooling tower when tower return water is gravity feeding a remote aux tank/reservoir. However, you will still need to add make-up water somewhere in the cooling tower loop in order to replace water lost to evaporation, blowdown, and drift. We recommend that you install a level sensor in the aux tank or reservoir to add make-up water. No overflow should be required if the tower will gravity feed into a remote aux tank or in-ground reservoir. Note: The remote aux tank or in-ground reservoir should have sufficient capacity to hold the tower shutdown water; if not, you need to find a way within the recirculating water loop to contain (or allow overflow of) excess shutdown water.

Q: What is the lead-time for service work by Tower Tech?
A: The “standard” lead-time for Tower Tech to perform service work is four to six weeks from the receipt of a customer’s P.O. and our agreement on terms and conditions. We can shorten this lead-time at times, and we are working to shorten this lead-time by increasing the number of factory trained independent service companies available to respond to service calls.

Q: Can Tower Tech perform immediate service work on all models of Tower Tech Modular Cooling Towers?
A: Depending on the time of year you call, we can usually offer immediate service on all models of our Modular Cooling Tower. However, during our busy season (from March to July) our service technicians are often scheduled four to six weeks in advance.

Q: What is Tower Tech’s availability to perform telephone and on-site diagnostics?
A: We can diagnose many problems by telephone the same day we receive your call, provided you give us the following information about the tower: Model Number, Serial Number, Product Number, Production Date, and estimated Ship Date. Our ability to conduct on-site diagnostics depends on the severity of your situation and the response determined by our telephone discussion with you. Typically, we can have one of our service technicians at your job site (within the U.S.) within three normal business days to diagnosis the situation further and develop a plan of action to resolve the problem.

Q: Does Tower Tech offer long-term preventative maintenance plans, and if so, what do your plans cover?
A: Yes, Tower Tech offers long-term preventative maintenance plans. Our PM Service Agreement is available on a one-year, three-year, or five-year basis. The plans include an initial thorough inspection, preventative maintenance service, and a semi-annual inspection of your tower per year (up to one “inspection day” per tower) for the life of the PM Service Agreement, unless otherwise specified.

Q: Is Tower Tech available to do an on-site inspection prior to quoting a project for preventative maintenance service?
A: We aim to satisfy each and every customer completely, and we are always available to address customers’ reasonable requests. We generally prefer to inspect a tower thoroughly before we submit a quote for service work, as our inspection reduces the possibility of discovering unforeseen problems later. A thorough inspection also allows our service technicians to bring to your job site all of the parts and appropriate equipment and tools to complete your job efficiently.

Q: Does a Tower Tech Modular Towers require a “Bernoulli Basin” to operate properly upon startup and shutdown?
A: The design of early Tower Tech Modular Cooling Towers had internal reservoir capacity that was believed to be sufficient for proper tower function upon startup and shutdown in every situation. This was the case in a majority of early installations but in approximately a dozen cases the tower’s internal reservoir capacity was inadequate: at startup the tower reservoir would be sucked dry, leading to air entrainment; and at shutdown water held in the fill would overflow the tower’s internal reservoir. In those few cases, we solved these problems by recommending installation of a “Bernoulli Basin” – an external auxiliary water reservoir that operated as one with the module’s internal reservoir. We redesigned the Modular Cooling Tower in 1998, giving it 40% more internal reservoir capacity. This eliminated the need for Bernoulli Basins and no Bernoulli Basin has been installed on any new Modular Cooling Tower since 1998.

Q: Are there any special considerations that I should give to the Tower Tech Modular Tower since it operates with a reduced amount of basin capacity?
A: The internal reservoir in a Tower Tech Modular Cooling Tower is “right sized” to allow efficient operation in virtually any application. While it is true that reservoir capacity is less than some other tower designs, ample capacity remains to allow for normal tower startup and shutdown procedures. When multiple tower modules are required, we recommend a staged startup and/or shutdown procedure as described in our Installation, Operation & Maintenance Manual. We further recommend that on installation the piping contractor install an isolation valve at the tower hot water inlet and a check/shutoff valve in the tower outlet piping. Benefits of right sizing a cooling tower’s internal reservoir include reduced tower operating weight and reduced tower system volume. The impact of low operating weight is apparent. Reduced system volume reduces blowdown volume, make-up water requirements, and water treatment costs.