I had an opportunity to work with ethylene glycol industrial
coolant while up in New Hampshire, and everything was dandy
until the system leaked.
What I didn't know about industrial ethylene glycol was that it
physically burns human skin even though it might not be
at a hot temperature.
We ran a 100 percent glycol system up on top of a mountain
in NH and needed to do so in case there was a catastrophic
power outage and access was denied because of weather
conditions (and everything naturally froze solid).
We used an accumulator with a spring diaphragm to maintain
even pressure (along with a pressure regulator valve) and after
one particularly nasty season the system was found to be leaking
at the plastic-to-metal pipe junction, so the coolant had to be
drained in order to effect repairs, and a couple of us got our
hands and arms soaked, and with no plumbing facilities at the
tower site we walked around for hours having just toweled the
coolant off, and later suffered what looked to be like second-
degree chemical burns up and down our arms.
For those of us not trained by a seasoned hand in ethylene glycol
cooling system safety I would recommend sticking with distilled
water if you don't have to worry about frozen plumbing.
Respectfully,
Hal Mandel
W4HBM
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