Jeff, I'm in the middle of installing a 24 product system with a 35 ft. run and a 14 ft. lift. The system has a custom 24 product Kool-Rite tower. I'm installing a dual blender because the customer wants to have two stout style beers. My main reason for now installing blenders is this. I installed a system about four years ago, two towers, one first floor, one second floor, with a blender. I went into the account one day to clean the lines and noticed on a humid day that the tower was not condensating. The glycol pump went down and the customer didn't even know. The faucet temp was 49 degrees. Customer said a couple people mentioned it being warm, but failed to notify me. Try that with straight CO2. Straight C02, as soon as you get above 38 deg. your running foamy. This make a difference on a saturday night when you have a band and you can serve beer as opposed to not being able to serve anything. I'm not advocating warm beer, but in an emergency, straight Co2 won't cut it. With this in mind can you design this system with 1/4" line, straight CO2 or beer pumps to run @ 49 deg at the faucet?
As far as beer pumps go, as stupid as this seems, sometimes bar backs are limited as far as common sense goes. I have an account that has had two beer pumps go bad at different periods of time. It seems when the pumps go bad the will pump beer out the exhaust. On a busy night the bar backs tapped 6 half kegs on one line not realizing the beer was being pumped down the sump pump in the basement floor. The second time 4 halves went down the drain.
I've been doing this for 31 yrs. and right now I can say, when I put a system in, I have no call backs unless there is a mechanical problem. Never any flashing, 1 gpm, unless the customer wants it slower, then I will add more restriction, 5/16" trunkline when possible, I'm a firm believer in the blenders, not pumps, I'm open to 1/4" trunkline on short runs with relatively limited lift. I agree we need to limit the amount of beer going down the drain during the cleaning process. And yes I still believe the 1/4" limits your run depending on lift. Most of the chain restaurants, the coolers are on the same level as the towers, with limitations, and a blender you can do 1/4", most mom and pops coolers are in the basement. Show me a 25 ft run with a Kool-Rite tower with a 14 ft. lift on straight Co2, without pumps.
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