Expert: Dave Russell - 8/16/2001

Question
hello , my family owns a motel,(3 stories) and there is a 9 story hotel next to us. they took their old air conditioner off of there roof and decided on putting the "new system" on the ground. the problem is that they placed it next to our baby sandbox, and our pool. it is a 15 1/2"
industrial fluid cooler. is this safe? also it has been a year and our pool is out of whack and our trees are near next to dead!
thanks for your help.ps. we did go to the city, but this town is all about who knows who. thanks for your help! Does this make our property value go down?


Answer
Depending upon what they have done, the heat may be the problem.  I assume that the unit is a sealed unit and that there is no liquid flowing across the unit to provide cooling.  (see below).
If this is the case, the thing coming off the unit may be hot air.  To the extent that it is killing your trees, the extra heat and the moving air would tend to dry them out and dry out the soil and their leaves by blowing hot air across the leaves creating rapid evaporation.
You will have to describe what the problem is with your pool. it may be as simple as dust passing through the blower on the cooling coil.
If your neighbor has a liquid type cooling tower (Liquid is running over the pipes or the cooling tower uses a spray or falling liquid film on baffles, then you might have an entirely different problem. The liquid based cooling tower has chemicals in it to prevent corrosion. A number of these chemicals are toxic. Depending upon where you are (where are you?) the chemical additives to the cooling tower may be anything from hexavalent chromium (highly toxic) to zinc, to antimony (also toxic).  The drift from their cooling tower (that's spray and droplets) could be getting on things of yours and you may have an actionable situation where you can reasonably and rightly claim that they are damaging you, your property, and endangering the public health. Id' need a bit more information about their cooling tower and the type.  The 15 1/2" doesn't tell me a thing.  Look for a name plate and a model number. Also look to see if you can see a lot of fluid falling down the slots of the tower if it has slots.  
Drop me a note back with that information and we'll go the next step.  I will be out of the office starting the 23rd until the 6th so if you want a quick response, contact me before then.  Contact me at the address below directly and not through all experts.
Dave Russell
dlr@mindspring.com