In the world of industrial cooling, the true cost of a replacement part often isn’t visible on a price tag. Decisions made in the equipment room — what to order, where to source it — can shape how well a system runs for years to come.
Third-party components may promise quick fixes or cost savings, but they introduce a layer of uncertainty that’s tough to quantify until something goes wrong. Parts engineered and tested by the original manufacturer, on the other hand, offer a kind of insurance: proven compatibility, consistent quality, and the backing of a team that understands your equipment from the inside out.
When replacing, upgrading, or retrofitting parts for your cooling systems, the parts being specially designed for your cooling units can make all the difference for the unit’s future performance. Unknown parts give unknown results, and getting factory-tested equipment directly from the manufacturer cuts out the unknown from your cooling system’s lifespan.
There are significant benefits for the end user when ordering from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) as opposed to getting parts from a third party. With the original manufacturer, parts are factory-tested for quality before being made available to users. There are often rigorous certifications to make sure you are getting a quality product.
Purchasing directly from the source ensures that you have a knowledgeable vendor for your product, which reinforces any guarantees for compatibility and gives users access to a team with direct knowledge of that product and how it works.
Warranties can also be a great safety net for customers looking for upgrades or fixes for their cooling systems. Purchasing third-party parts runs a higher risk of incompatibility and part failure, and there is a significantly higher risk of those issues not being covered under a warranty. Getting technical support from the experts during installation can make upgrades much easier and drastically cut downtime for operations.
Fitting units with parts not from the original manufacturer is a gamble. Manufacturers spend thousands of hours researching, testing, and improving parts to run optimally with cooling towers so that there can be sustained cooling performance. Third-party parts tend to fail earlier and perform worse than OEM parts, with incompatible fits and untested equipment being common faults reducing the lifespan of the unit.
A case study found that BAC’s Series 3000 Cooling Tower, when fitted with an outside vendor’s block fill, performed at just 72 percent of the original tower’s thermal capacity. The Series 3000 Tower traditionally uses a hanging fill as a surface area to evaporate water and reject heat, and the block style fill was comprised of corrugated PVC sheets with a lesser total surface area to evaporate water.
BAC also offers a VersaCross Fill, which is designed for the Series 3000 Cooling Tower to prolong the life and maintain efficiency in the unit. An independent testing company compared two units, one with the block fill and one with the VersaCross Fill. To test the efficiency, both units, which are located at an NHL arena, were put under the stress of a packed game.
The two 18-year-old towers performed very differently, with the third-party block fill unit having a reduction in thermal capacity to 72 percent of the original capacity, and the OEM VersaCross Fill unit operating at 96 percent of the original unit thermal capacity.
To show degradation over time, the block fill unit was tested 16 months and 28 months after installation, where it continued showing a significant performance drop-off. With a lower initial installation cost, the block fill was an attractive first choice, but the additional energy consumption, maintenance costs, and reduced performance ultimately resulted in the user switching to BAC’s VersaCross Fill.
Total cost of ownership versus initial cost is critical when considering replacement parts. Exact form, fit, and function make a big difference in maintaining a cost-effective cooling solution, and the reliability of OEM parts will play a major factor in getting the most out of your cooling towers.
BAC has made significant efforts to expand and evolve the resources for its aftermarket team to give customers the best possible experience when purchasing parts and upgrades. From working with vendors to drop ship parts to customers in a seamless transition to fulfilling parts from any of BAC’s CTI certified towers, part warranties, and engineers across the globe continually pushing innovation, you can have peace of mind that your equipment is reliable and designed to keep your operations cool.