Chiller Service in Tampa, FL

Chilled water in Tampa, from a district plant to a hospital campus

The sites named on this page appear only because their own pages describe them. This page makes no claim about who services their equipment, and the quotes below are what each site says about itself.

In downtown Tampa, Florida, DCO Energy's page on the Water Street plant says: “The central chilled water plant consists of electric centrifugal chillers as well as an ice storage system.” (source). If your building takes chilled water from a district plant, ask who owns and who services each piece of equipment on each side of the connection, and ask for the answer in writing.

In Tampa, Florida, Tampa General Hospital's fact sheet says: “The main hospital campus is located on Davis Islands in Tampa and is licensed for 982 beds.” (source). Ask the owner of any building that is occupied around the clock what the cooling plan is for the hours a chiller is off, who is called, and when that plan was last tested.

Westshore, Ybor City and the port

In its 2019 release about an interchange project in Tampa Bay, the Governor's office says of the Westshore district: “Home to Tampa International Airport, two professional sports facilities and over 4,000 businesses, Westshore is where commuter, cargo and tourism traffic converge.” (source). Ask whoever manages an office building in a district like that how many tenants share one chilled water loop, and who speaks for them when the plant needs to be shut down for work.

The National Park Service says of Tampa's Ybor City: “The district contains more than 950 historic buildings and structures built during its peak industrial years.” (source). Ask whether a building's age limits where new equipment can stand, how it would be moved into place, and which reviewer at the City decides.

Port Tampa Bay, in Florida, says on its About the Port page: “Port Tampa Bay handles almost any type of commodity to/from anywhere in the world.” (source). Ask any owner whose building holds refrigerated product how long that product can go without cooling, and what the written plan is when that time runs out.

Permits for replacing mechanical equipment in Tampa

The City of Tampa's Construction Services page on commercial permits says: “Commercial permits apply to Condominiums, triplexes, multi-family apartments, businesses of all types, mixed-use structures, and other miscellaneous categories such as fire, sprinklers, alarms, kitchen hoods, and dumpster enclosures.” and, separately, says: “Didn’t find the permit type you were looking for? Please email: CSDHelp@tampagov.net or call: (813) 274-3100, option 1” (source).

Ask the City, in writing, which permit category covers the work before a contract is signed. Ask who is named on the application, who submits it, who schedules the inspections and whether the permit is a line in the proposal or a separate cost. Keep the permit number with the equipment record, so the next contractor can find it.

What to ask about the rainy season

The National Weather Service Tampa Bay Area office's page says: “The rainy season runs from May 15 to October 15 for Southwest Florida and from May 25 to October 10 for the rest of West Central Florida.” (source). Ask what the plan is for that part of the calendar. Ask when planned work such as coil cleaning and tube inspection is scheduled in relation to it, and ask who is called when the plant trips off during a lightning storm and how the restart is checked.

The plant around the chiller

A chiller works with the pumps that move its water, the tower or coils that reject its heat, and the controls that sequence them. Ask whoever services the chiller who is responsible for each of those, and whether one report covers the whole plant or only the machine.

For a water-cooled machine, ask when the condenser tubes were last inspected and what the report said. See cooling tower maintenance and pumps and hydronic services for the questions on those parts, and building automation controls for the controls.

Reading a service report

A report is useful when someone who was not on site can follow it. Ask for entering and leaving chilled water temperatures, the pressures on both sides of the machine, compressor current against the nameplate, and the alarm history from the controller. Ask for the date of each reading.

Ask the technician to rank the findings in three groups: work that cannot wait, work to plan for, and items that only need watching. Ask for a photograph of anything called a defect. Keep the reports in one folder for the building, with the nameplate photographs, so a new facility manager or a new contractor can start from the record rather than from a guess.

What a chiller service call involves

Before anyone arrives, collect the nameplate details for each machine: model, serial number, refrigerant, charge and controller. Photograph the plate, and keep the photograph with the last service report.

Ask the technician to say, in plain terms, what was measured, what was found and which items are repairs now and which are things to watch. Ask for the readings in writing, so that the next visit can be compared with this one. See chiller maintenance service for what a routine visit covers, and the commercial chiller hub for links to the brand, service and city pages. For a machine that is already faulting, see chiller repair, and for a plant that has stopped, see emergency chiller service.

What to ask before a chiller replacement

A replacement is a larger decision than a repair, and the questions are different. Ask what the load is today, rather than what it was when the old machine was bought. Ask how the building will be cooled during the changeover, who prices the work, and what the plan is for the pumps, tower and controls around the new machine.

Blume prices a replacement option alongside repair, especially when a machine is close to its expected life. For the refrigerant side of the question see refrigerant transition, for the budget side see capital planning, and for the alternative see chiller vs VRF. The full set of replacement questions is on chiller replacement, and temporary chiller rental covers keeping a building cool during the changeover.

Chiller brands in Tampa

Blume works on commercial chillers in Tampa, in Hillsborough County. Blume doesn't necessarily push one brand or another, and Blume has commercial accounts with Carrier, Trane and Daikin Applied. Each page below covers one manufacturer.

• See Carrier chiller service in Tampa Bay.
• See Trane chiller service in Tampa Bay.
• See Daikin chiller service in Tampa Bay.
• See York chiller service in Tampa Bay.
• See McQuay chiller service in Tampa Bay.

See commercial HVAC in Tampa for the wider commercial picture.

Where to start

If the chiller has no service history, begin with the nameplate and the last report you can find. Call 727-330-9131 with what you have, and describe the machine, the building and what is going wrong, if anything is.

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