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Acid cleaning of heat exchangers

Q. We clean heat exchangers on site for our clients. What level of acidity should we try to maintain during the treatment process.

Bill Chroniger
HVAC Contractor - Beltsville, Maryland, USA
2004

A. Hi Bill,

Seeing that no one else had replied to your request, I thought I'd have a stab.

I'd assume that your customers' heat exchangers had just water inside them ... in which case, presupposing alkali build-up, I'd use off the shelf muriatic acid [affil links] (maybe diluted by 50%) which your local lumber yard would have. Commercially this is also called, as you well know, hydrochloric acid.... but never, EVER add water to acid, please always do it the other way around.

If you really want to 'measure' the acidity, you'd have to have some pH controls ... and then I'd only replace or top up the acid when the levels bottom off to say around 6 pH.

Does this help? I hope so ...

Freeman Newton [deceased]
(It is our sad duty to advise that Freeman passed away
April 21, 2012. R.I.P. old friend).
2004

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