Heat exchanger leakage issues

[Len-IDEA]

Posted on behalf of an IDEA member organization that wishes to remain anonymous at this time:

I’m looking for a bit of help and or introduction to industry colleagues that could help me with my background investigations into the current challenges our university is having with a certain brand of Double Walled Brazed Plate (DWBP) Domestic Hot Water (DHW) heat exchangers (Hex’s) that we installed as part of our Hot Water conversion. For example, we have suffered 15 x external leaks, with 5 of those also partially failing internally as well, so causing some cross contamination of District water into a buildings DHW system. This is approx. 19% of this brand's installed DWBP DHW hex’s capacity at our university. All were captured and dealt with quickly. FYI we do have other brands of DWBP DHW Hex’s in service as part of the project and none of these other brands has failed to date. I’m sure this will be a future presentation at IDEA at some point…

For now though what I am interested in learning is are there any other district systems firstly in North America that are using DWBP DHW Hex’s, and or if no what are they using for their tech, e.g. Plate and Frame DHW hex’s. I’ve spoken to several consultants, and other operators in Canada (including FVB, and Corix) and they all typically specify for Plate and Frame DHW Hex’s and none were aware of any systems in Canada that were using DWBP DHW Hex’s. Should there be no other users in N. America would you be aware of any European systems that use DWBP DHW Hex’s, if yes I would be interested in connecting with some of these companies or consultants to get their feedback and experiences.

If the answer to the above is no, and somehow we are the only district operator using DWBP DHW Hex’s then I would be interested in IDEA’s and or the considered opinion of our peers as to why DWBP DHW Hex’s should not be used and that Plate & Frame (or another technology) should be selected.