Cooling Tower Service, Repair & Replacement
Rebuilds, fill and drift eliminator replacement, gearbox and drive work, basin repair, and full tower replacements with rigging.
The cooling tower is where most central plants quietly lose capacity. Fouled fill, worn drift eliminators, an out-of-balance fan or a basin that has been patched for a decade all show up as high condenser water temperatures and a chiller that trips on a hot afternoon. CMI services, rebuilds and replaces towers across San Diego County — field-erected and factory-assembled, steel, FRP and concrete basin.
Service scope covers gearbox and drive shaft replacement, motor and VFD work, fan and blade balancing, fill and drift eliminator replacement, distribution basin and nozzle repair, sump screens, makeup and bleed controls, basin cleaning and coating, structural steel repair and mechanical support replacement. We coordinate water treatment and cleaning practices with your Legionella water management program under ASHRAE 188.
Replacements are a rigging exercise: crane picks over an occupied building, knock-down towers into a screened penthouse, new dunnage steel, condenser water piping and isolation, and a cutover that fits your outage window. We handle the whole scope, including electrical, controls and startup with logged approach and range performance.
Scope & capabilities
- Tower inspection, performance testing and capacity troubleshooting
- Gearbox, drive shaft, coupling, sheave, belt, motor and VFD replacement
- Basin cleaning, repair, welding and protective coating; sump and screen work
- Makeup, bleed, level control and condenser water piping and valves
- ASHRAE 188 water management coordination and disinfection support
- Fill, drift eliminator, louver and casing replacement
- Fan blade replacement and balancing, vibration switch calibration
- Structural steel, dunnage and support replacement
- Full tower replacement including crane rigging and knock-down assembly
The technical envelope
- Tower types
- Induced/forced draft, crossflow, counterflow, field-erected, FRP
- Capacity
- 50 – 3,000+ nominal tons
- Coatings
- Basin epoxy and ceramic-filled coating systems
- Rigging
- Crane and knock-down assembly for restricted penthouses
- Testing
- Approach, range and flow verification at startup
Facility types
Cooling Towers — straight answers
- Our chiller trips on hot days — is the tower the problem?
- Often. We measure approach and range, verify flow and fan performance, and inspect fill and distribution. Restoring tower performance is usually far cheaper than the chiller work that gets proposed instead.
- Do you support Legionella water management plans?
- Yes. We work within your ASHRAE 188 plan — cleaning and disinfection procedures, drift eliminator condition, basin sanitation, documentation for your infection-control or EHS team, and coordination with your water treatment vendor.
- Can a tower be replaced without a long shutdown?
- With planning, yes. Multi-cell towers are replaced cell by cell; single-tower plants are handled with a pre-staged knock-down unit, pre-fabricated piping and a weekend crane window.
Get a number you can budget against
We walk the plant before we price it. You get equipment condition, options, phasing and a schedule — not a guess with a contingency wrapped around it.