At AHR this year I had a few coil manufacturers come up to me regarding solutions for cleaning coils with coatings on them. These coatings vary by type and style but generally I’ve found the following.
- Polyurethanes
- Epoxies
- Fluoropolymers
- Silane
Some of these coatings are manufacturer applied, others done in the field. The objective of the coating is to protect the coils from moisture and contaminants that could cause corrosion and pitting and therefore resulting in pinhole leaks. Generally coils are coated when they are in environments where moisture can contain acidic materials. None of these are what you want.
The easy answer is not to clean coils with acidic or highly caustic agents. This is easier said than done because many coil cleaners on the market fit these two categories spot on.
For most coatings however, alkaline coil cleaners like our SpeedFoam will do a great job and not adversely impact the coating.
The trickiness of this answer is that while an alkaline coil cleaner can generally be less harmful to coils because it contains no acids, it can have an impact on the coatings. This will then impact the life of the coatings and therefore expose the specific coils to the environment from which the coating is protecting them.
In particular cases where you are concerned about cleaning coated coils with alkaline coil cleaner, I recommend BBJ Power Coil Clean. This is a powerful coil cleaning agent that is pH neutral yet offers fantastic cleaning power and – it’s completely biodegradable.
This product can be applied using our CoilJet portable coil cleaning system, which makes cleaning coils on the go fast and easy.
