Electronic Water Level Controllers in the Cooling Tower industry have experienced a continuous sales decline almost since they were originally introduced nearly twenty years ago. Everyone seems to have been disappointed by this product category for one reason or another, including the Original Equipment Manufacturers, specifying engineers, cooling tower factory dealers, field service technicians and facility maintenance staff.
So what happened? Well, I can tell you that it’s not just one thing, but a host of things which all stem from a low barrier to entry. What’s a low barrier to entry? It means that anyone with a little bit of know-how can put together a product that will keep a cooling tower basin full. However, once the trust between the makers of these poorly designed devices and their customers has been lost or destroyed due to poor product performance, it’s hard to gain back that trust. And, the bad reputation created by these inadequate products unfortunately paints a negative perception for all products in the category regardless of design or manufacturer.
Here are the five reasons why I believe the sales of electronic water level controllers have been declining:
Reason #1 – Product Design: The most important aspect for a product like this is how easily it can be disassembled in the field for repair or service. The relay that operates the solenoid valve is the component that fails most often in these kinds of products. So ask yourself the next time you install or replace an electronic water level controller, “does this controller allow access to the relays that will fail over time and, if so, can those parts be easily replaced?”
The second most important design feature that you will not know, unless you ask, is how the sensing circuit works. Ideally the sensing circuit does not exceed one volt or one ampere. Also, some sound sensing systems become distorted and inaccurate by the reflections created by water. I wrote a paper about the differences between sensing methods on my website at www.waterlinecontrols.com under the White Papers section.
Reason #2 – Product Lifecycle: WOW! Don’t you think a product as important as this is to the Cooling Tower should last as long as the Cooling Tower? I absolutely do! You see, it costs a lot less to replace individual component parts than it does to replace an entire system. So why specify or use a product that, when it fails, you have to replace the entire controller instead of just the little part that failed? Would you replace your car if it only needed new spark plugs? Neither would I.
Reason #3 – Cost: A lot goes into the pricing of any product- market potential, competitive offerings, cost of production, distribution, customer support, overhead and a whole host of other things. Pricing is both a science and an art. In this case, we’re also dealing with a product that has a damaged reputation, so there are a few other factors that go into the equation. I think the right answer in this case is a fair price based on a product that has ALL the attributes necessary for the product to last as long as the cooling tower without the need to replace the entire level control product – EVER!
So, if you choose the right product it will cost less to operate than a mechanical float system over the entire life of the cooling tower. If you replace the mechanical float in a cooling tower every three years, then over 25 years you will have paid a total of $2,400 for eight floats, at a cost of approximately $300 each. Compare this to a total of less than $500 for a simple $20 replaceable component part every ten years plus the cost of rebuilding the valve every five years at a cost of $75 each. The right level control product can cost less than half as much as mechanical floats over the expected life span of the cooling tower.
If you choose the wrong electronic level controller it costs significantly more to use. The wrong products, when it fails, requires the service technician to replace the entire unit at the original price of approximately $800. If you need to do this every seven years (sometimes more often than that) then it is cost prohibitive. This Product should have parts that are replaceable so it can last the life of the tower.
Reason #4 – Serviceability: A field technician or a facility maintenance person should be able to evaluate a system without taking it apart. It should be fast and easy to diagnose and fix a problem in the field without having to replace the entire control box. Testing and diagnostics of a properly designed water level controller should include clearly marked lights that indicate when a function is operating and when it is not, or an onboard test switch to allow the controls to sequence through their functions, or both.
Reason #5 – Market Perception: Whenever I hear someone say, “Oh, that product (whatever it is) doesn’t work”, the first question I ask is, “What do you mean it doesn’t work?” Because the “doesn’t work” could mean any number of different things. In this case, what I have found is that while poorly designed controls perform the basic functions, they do nothing to foster the sustainability of this product segment and, as a result, create a bad reputation in the industry for all water level controls.
The point is that anyone can build a product that performs the basic functions for any application, but not everyone can design a product that is sustainable for the market segment to grow. In the field we see sensors hanging from wires (is that permanent?), solid state controls epoxied so the parts inside cannot be replaced, high voltage wiring inside wet environments, indicator lights that are counter-intuitive and controls without trouble-shooting processes or indicator lights – all technical nightmares that are not sustainable.
What It All Means
Lots of people know how to put parts together to get a water level controller that is functionally correct. Some work better than others. Maybe what I should really say is that the field technician makes the decision on what to use and not use and their experiences with past products influences their future decisions. These technicians “vote with their company pocketbooks” and the sales of these products have continued to decline over the last nineteen years because of poor product performance. What that really means is not that the product does not function as described, but rather that when it fails to meet the needs of the technician, it fails to meet the needs of the marketplace and the segment does not grow.
Mechanical floats work, electronic level controls work, but they are not geared for market acceptance. They are merely tolerated. Even when something better comes along it may be hard to accept it because of perceptions based on experiences with other similar products in the past.
We have spent 20 years in the Electronic Water Level Controls business in other markets and 15 years ago we looked at the Cooling Tower Industry as a market we would eventually enter.
In 2007 we contacted an OEM of cooling towers to determine if they were happy with the Water Level Controls they were currently using. At that time, they were not. So we spent the next two years developing an advanced, next-generation product specifically designed for the cooling tower market. We started our sales efforts in January 2009 and offered the product through the traditional distribution channels.
Unfortunately, we missed something – not in the design, not in the product life span, not in the cost and not in the serviceability, but in the market perception for these kinds of products caused by years of disappointment.
Our Goal
So, our goal now is to not only continue to manufacture, support and improve the most reliable, technically-advanced, user-friendly electronic water level controller ever created for this market, but also to dedicate ourselves to correcting the misperceptions about this product category. This industry is too important to let the disappointments of the past negatively influence the positive future we envision for it.
