10/05/2013

Water Treatment Chemicals supply for Pretty Legs, UK

The Client
Established in 1959, Pretty Legs Hosiery is the largest independent hosiery manufacturer in the UK. During this time Pretty Legs has consistently produced excellent ranges of quality fashion, branded, maternity and medical hosiery products including tights, footless tights, stockings, hold-ups, knee highs, flight socks, ankle highs, foot socks and much more.

Pretty Legs supplies all sectors of the hosiery business including high street stores, specialist fashion distributors, e-commerce and specialist catalogues and the National Health Service.

Key Facts
• Steam is critical to Pretty Legs production process

• The boiler is the factory’s main energy consumer

The Client’s Needs
The boiler system at Pretty Legs is small – only 1.8tph at 7bar – however it supplies steam for the all-important dyehouse, which adds the colours to the Pretty Legs fashion range. It also heats the autoclave which ensures a wrinkle free finish to the hosiery. So the boiler is critical to production and Pretty Legs’ Maintenance Engineer, Jason Isherwood, needs to ensure that it runs at peak efficiency. The boiler water chemistry needs to be closely monitored to prevent scale and corrosion which would reduce heat transfer, increase energy consumption and could lead to production downtime. When the annual boiler water treatment service contract was due for renewal Jason invited a quote from ELGA Process Water.

The Solution
ELGA Process Water’s solution was to provide conditioning chemicals from the Hydrex range. These are concentrated which means that customers are purchasing less water than with some competitors’ chemicals.  As a result, volumes of chemicals for storage at Pretty Legs have been reduced by about 50%. It also means reduced costs, and Jason has already found a reduction in chemical costs of over 20% by comparison with his previous chemical supplier. But the biggest benefit for Jason is the improved chemical control: “The ELGA Process Water Technician visits every month without fail and her advice is sound and professional. As a result the control is better and we have reduced our chemical consumption and operating costs too.” And that will be even more important, because Jason is about to take delivery of a new 3tph boiler to meet increased production demand.

The Benefits
• Monthly testing ensures optimum boiler water chemistry
• Better control of chemistry reduces chemical consumption by 20%
• Concentrated chemicals reduces stock volume by 50%

ELGA Process Water
+44 (0) 1628 897 000