The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California
New Handy Site On Plumbing
A good method of estimating the size of a drinking water circulating system is to figure that a 5-ton machine will take care of 1500 people.
In figuring the cost of installation of this system the cost of the fountains and piping must be added to the cost of the refrigerating machinery and its erection, as in the latter are included only the machine, motor, pump, coolers, and other items strictly connected with the machine The piping, including labor, pipe, and fittings, generally comes to about $1.00 per running foot. The price depends to a great extent on the length of the piping.
Circulating Ice Water
When cooling drinking water for department stores, office buildings, hotels and other public buildings, allow 5 tons refrigerating capacity for every 100 gallons water per hour consumed, thus allowing for waste and radiation losses through water pipe covering In hotels with fountains in every room allow one ton total refrigerating capacity for 50 to 75 rooms. Drinking water fountains in corridors of public buildings are opened so often that one ton of refrigerating capacity is required per every six to eight fountains. Two gallons of drinking water per minute is usually, circulated per ton of total refrigerating plant capacity. In office buildings having drinking fountains in every office allow one ton capacity per 40 fountains.
Factory superintendents, architects and engineers, who are most active in utilizing modern methods of doing things right, consider that factories and buildings should be equipped with a mechanical refrigerating plant for cooling drinking water.
The old bucket and dipper method, or common drinking cup, is not only unsanitary, expensive and wasteful of time, but on account of the temptation to drink excessive quantities at infrequent opportunities it affords, has proven very injurious.
Lack of proper supply of water at improper temperatures lowers the personal efficiency, and decreases production of the employee.
The new method is to install a sanitary, porcelain, self-closing bubbling cup, in combination with a carbonic system of refrigeration.
Ice vs. Mechanical Refrigeration: According to accurate cost records of one of the largest American corporations, it was discovered that the old fashioned ice water cooler is 300% more expensive to maintain that a mechanical refrigerating plant, considering the excessive cost of ice, and labor for handling ice, as compared with the cost of power and supplies for a refrigerating plant. The electric power required is only one kilowatt maximum demand per 100 employees.
Water Pipe Line Design: The ideal plant to install is the self-closing, bubbling fountain, interconnected by properly insulated pipe lines, through which water is recirculated at a velocity not exceding 195 feet per minute The water, after traveling through not more than to thousand feet of pipe, usually rises about five degrees in temperature, when it should be returned to refrigerating plant and re-cooled. Physicians agree upon this point, that water at a temperature of 40 to 45 degrees Fahr. is most acceptable, as it acts as a mild heart stimulant and reduces the temperature of the body.
