Dry Coolers

A dry cooler rejects heat using ambient air alone, with no evaporation and no continuous water use. If your site is under pressure to cut water consumption, or sits somewhere, water is scarce; it is often the smarter choice. Franklin Hodge designs and builds dry air coolers across the UK and internationally through our Carter Environmental range, sized to your duty and built to run reliably for years. 

What a Dry Cooler Is and How It Works 

A dry cooler, also called a dry air cooler, cools a fluid inside a closed circuit by passing ambient air across a finned coil. The process fluid never touches the air, and none is lost to evaporation, so water use in dry operation is effectively nil. Fans move air over the coil to reject the heat, which makes the unit simple to run and straightforward to maintain. For sites that want predictable performance without the water treatment an evaporative system needs, a dry cooler is a clean, low-maintenance answer. 

When to Choose a Dry Cooler Over a Cooling Tower 

The right choice depends on your target temperatures and your appetite for water use. A dry cooler avoids evaporative loss, and the treatment and legionella controls that come with it, but its outlet temperature is tied to the ambient air. An evaporative tower reaches lower temperatures but uses water to get there. We supply both, so rather than pushing one technology, we specify the system that fits your heat load, your climate and your water strategy. Our full cooling towers range sits alongside our dry coolers for exactly that reason. 

Adiabatic Dry Air Coolers for Hot Conditions 

When ambient temperatures climb, a pure dry cooler can struggle to hit tight outlet targets. Our adiabatic air blast cooler answers that by pre-cooling the incoming air with a fine spray only when conditions demand it, staying dry for most of the year and drawing on water only on the hottest days. It is the one unit in our air blast range that runs an adiabatic mode, giving you dry-cooling economy with a performance lift when you need it. See our adiabatic cooling page for the detail. 

Where Dry Air Coolers Are Used 

Dry coolers suit any site that wants heat rejection without heavy water use. They are widely specified for process cooling in industry, for chiller and refrigeration support, and increasingly for data centre cooling where water scrutiny is high. Wherever a closed-circuit, low-water solution makes sense, we size a unit to the duty and integrate it with the systems already on site. 

Carter Environmental Dry Coolers, Made in Britain 

Our dry air coolers are part of the Carter Environmental range, designed, manufactured and supported by our Birmingham facility. That means UK engineering, a long track record in industrial cooling, and continuity of support and spare parts across the life of the unit. For a sector that values reliability, that heritage counts. 

Specify Your Dry Cooler with Franklin Hodge 

With over 50 years in industrial cooling across the UK and internationally, Franklin Hodge can specify the dry cooler that fits your heat load, your site and your water goals. Tell us what you need to cool, and our engineering team will recommend the right unit. Request a quote with your project details and we will come back to you with a tailored solution.