Chiller rental cost is quoted as a rate per ton for a month, and on a short hire the machine is often the smaller half of the invoice. A hundred ton air cooled unit might sit near $3,000 to $6,000 for the month, while the hoses, glycol, pump package, mobilisation and the technician who commissions it add much of that again. Ask for the delivered, running total instead of the rate.
The rate per ton falls as the term stretches
Cooling is priced per ton, commonly $25 to $75 a ton for a month, and that figure drops sharply from a day to a week to a month and again on a season long contract. Larger machines also price lower per ton than small ones. Two weeks of hire almost always costs more than a month, so ask for both numbers before assuming the shorter term saves money.
Mobilisation is charged both ways
Getting the unit there is a low loader, sometimes a crane or a forklift to set it down, and a technician to position and start it. Getting it away is the same again at the end. Neither appears in a rate per ton, and on a two week hire the pair can rival the machine charge. Ask for them as named lines.
Ancillaries are where a short hire doubles
The quote to compare includes hoses and camlock fittings sized for the flow, distribution manifolds, the glycol charge and its disposal, a pump package if the loop is long or the head is high, power cable, and often a generator alongside where the site supply cannot carry the compressor. None of that is optional once the unit is on site.
Emergency hire is a different price list
A unit needed tonight because plant has failed is priced on availability, out of hours mobilisation and overtime for the crew, and there is no negotiating from that position. Sites that cannot lose cooling buy that risk down in advance with a standby agreement, which fixes a rate and a response time before anything breaks.
Questions people ask about chiller rental cost
How is chiller capacity priced?
By the ton, where one ton is twelve thousand BTU per hour of cooling. Rental fleets run from about ten tons up to several hundred, and the per ton rate falls as the machine gets larger. Size from the actual heat load, because paying for tons you do not need costs money every month of the hire.
Is glycol included in the rental?
Rarely. Glycol is bought by volume for the loop and charged separately, and where it cannot be flushed to drain at the end there is a disposal cost too. It is required wherever the loop can freeze or the process runs below freezing, so ask early whether your job needs it at all.
What power does a rental chiller need?
Three phase, sized to the compressor, and the connection is usually camlock at a panel rather than a plug. Many hires end up with a generator beside the unit because the existing supply cannot carry the starting current. Confirm the electrical requirement before the machine is booked, not when it arrives.