I am sure several forum members know exactly what I am doing tonight. This is the opened front of a 1973 vintage Cleaver Brooks 500 horsepower 4 pass boiler. It's in great condition for being 51 years old. It should pass inspection with no problem.
My job tonight
- Thread starter Watertender
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Not bad. You going to brush the tubes? How does the shell side look? Any pitting on the hand hole gasket surfaces?
From the single photo you can't tell how well your water treatment program is working. By the way who is your chemical provider?
From the single photo you can't tell how well your water treatment program is working. By the way who is your chemical provider?
The day Engineer will brush the tubes with a Goodway machine. The waterside is decent, we use Nalco for our water treatment program. I do the water testing and adjust the chemical feeds as needed.
I will look at the waterside with my inspection camera tonight. The way they feed the chemicals and have the feed water system set up isn't the greatest. The concentrated chemicals feed into the feed water line for an hour a day. It's a single tank instead of separate condensate return and deaerator tanks. I work with what I have though and make the best of it...
So, in other words A GIANT BOMB
.My friend is a boiler operator at a paper mill, watches gauges for 12 hours at a time.
Says it's rather boring, until things start going sideways, then it gets intense in a hurry.
WT, if I worked where you do, I would be thankful you were the maintenance guy!!
Cheers,
JAYDAWG
A simple timer would allow multiple feeds per day in smaller doses. That would give you more consistent residuals. Alternatively, depending on your blowdown controller you could slave the chemical feed to it. Not ideal by any means but the feed rate would be somewhat in ratio to water usage.
But honestly chemical feed controllers are cheap these days. Beyond better control, you might save in chemical costs enough to have it pay for itself over time
Since I took a number of Nalco's larger customers from them I'll tell you this. As a large company, with huge overhead, once they get a contract they aren't really interested in minimizing the customers costs.
Contact some of the smaller, local outfits. They can usually provide better service at lower cost.
Oh and don't believe all the BS about their products being "superior". Water treatment is a very mature science and pretty much everyone has access to equal quality chemicals.
But honestly chemical feed controllers are cheap these days. Beyond better control, you might save in chemical costs enough to have it pay for itself over time
Since I took a number of Nalco's larger customers from them I'll tell you this. As a large company, with huge overhead, once they get a contract they aren't really interested in minimizing the customers costs.
Contact some of the smaller, local outfits. They can usually provide better service at lower cost.
Oh and don't believe all the BS about their products being "superior". Water treatment is a very mature science and pretty much everyone has access to equal quality chemicals.
Jeepnik I have used several different companies through the years. I work with what they give me. I have been offered jobs by every treatment supplier I have ever dealt with. Watertender isn't just a name here, it's a lifetime of trying to be the best Engineer I can be. When I was Chief Engineer I had a lot more control of how things were done. Now I am a 1 feather 1 blanket Indian.
JAYDAWG the maintenance department is day shift. I have worked on a lot bigger boilers than these with a lot more pressure. I had 4 boilers that were 4 stories high that you could park a truck in the firebox of. They are controlled bombs yes but most explosions are operator error and I am very conscious of everything around me. Complacency is what kills....
JAYDAWG the maintenance department is day shift. I have worked on a lot bigger boilers than these with a lot more pressure. I had 4 boilers that were 4 stories high that you could park a truck in the firebox of. They are controlled bombs yes but most explosions are operator error and I am very conscious of everything around me. Complacency is what kills....
One summer between colleges I worked in a plant laminating clothe.. after the die was put on the cloth it went into a gas fired oven that was about 50 yards long... on occasion an alarm would go off and the supervisor who was sitting in an office would sit there for about a minute waiting for the furnace to reset.... after that he would slowly get up and start towards the big read shut down switch... but the furnace always reset before he got to it. The guy sitting up on a platform running the clothe would start to come down when the alarm went off. I asked him why and he said the last supervisor did the same thing. then he said look at the roof over the furnace... this was a hundred year old building but the roof over the furnace was new... seems one time the furnace did not reset.... the guy running the machine said he was just going out the door at the end of the building when it blew... tossed him about 20 ft. he then said if he starts running, just follow him and don't get in front of him.
that was the safe summer job... the one before that I worked in the third largest fertilizer plant ..... 'they' said if the ammonium nitrate went off it would leave a hole in the ground 3 miles wide.
Back when I first started in chimney sweeping in the early 80's there were classes on inspecting boilers and specifically when folks decided to add on to their wood stove a hot water system.... not that uncommon for folks to blow themselves up... high pressure steam is deadly it seems.
that was the safe summer job... the one before that I worked in the third largest fertilizer plant ..... 'they' said if the ammonium nitrate went off it would leave a hole in the ground 3 miles wide.
Back when I first started in chimney sweeping in the early 80's there were classes on inspecting boilers and specifically when folks decided to add on to their wood stove a hot water system.... not that uncommon for folks to blow themselves up... high pressure steam is deadly it seems.
If that paper mill has a paper machine, they probably have a black liquor boiler which can be very dangerous. My company was making some modifications to the Black Liquor Recovery Boiler at Georgia Pacific Crossett AR. It was still in operation while we were working in the boiler house. By the way they get really hot inside house in July. One day sirens blew alarms clanged and we cleared out of the house in a flash.So, in other words A GIANT BOMB
My friend is a boiler operator at a paper mill, watches gauges for 12 hours at a time.
Says it's rather boring, until things start going sideways, then it gets intense in a hurry.
WT, if I worked where you do, I would be thankful you were the maintenance guy!!
Cheers,
JAYDAWG
The operator told me they came really close to losing the boiler which would have made a real big bang.
I spent 6 months in our design contractor's office to confirm the constructability and scheduling of the facility for our construction crew
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Like WT said most issues are human. Every state in the US has inspection requirements. These include checking all of the safety shutdowns and pressure relief systems.
For years I showed photos of a boiler explosion to classes I gave. A fire tube like WT showed only larger. The door in the photo blew off, went through a cement wall and over the parking lot.
The body of the boiler blew through an interior cement wall, did a flip and ended upside down in the production area.
What caused it was lack of qualified personnel, Jerry rigging pressure controls and water level controls. They regularly committed the one sin you should never do. The put water into a hot boiler that had a very low level.
When you feed water into an empty boiler with the burner still firing that water expand tremendously. That pressure energy is going somewhere.
For years I showed photos of a boiler explosion to classes I gave. A fire tube like WT showed only larger. The door in the photo blew off, went through a cement wall and over the parking lot.
The body of the boiler blew through an interior cement wall, did a flip and ended upside down in the production area.
What caused it was lack of qualified personnel, Jerry rigging pressure controls and water level controls. They regularly committed the one sin you should never do. The put water into a hot boiler that had a very low level.
When you feed water into an empty boiler with the burner still firing that water expand tremendously. That pressure energy is going somewhere.
Jeepnik was that the Paris TN boiler explosion in 2007? Another really bad incident was in Ohio when a steam tractor had the boiler explode due to a low water condition and red hot crown sheet. Water sloshed onto the crown sheet and the sudden expansion of water flashing into steam caused catastrophic failure.
Most of my stuff was new except for the nukes. Not that we didn't have a few tube repairs from Boilermaker Apprentices with grinders.
Glad I just sell Auto Parts..... 
Cheers,
JaydaWg
Cheers,
JaydaWg
Don Lovel
Hunter
I ran asbestos abatement and reinsulation jobs on a bunch of huge old boilers for many years.
Kimberly Clark paper mill.in Memphis and Goodyear Tire plant in Union City Tennessee were a couple of the bigger ones we rehabbed.
Demolition of old early 1900's boilers was a huge job. Thèy built them hell for stout. Consumate "heavy metal experience"
Kimberly Clark paper mill.in Memphis and Goodyear Tire plant in Union City Tennessee were a couple of the bigger ones we rehabbed.
Demolition of old early 1900's boilers was a huge job. Thèy built them hell for stout. Consumate "heavy metal experience"
Does your store carry marbles?Glad I just sell Auto Parts.....
Cheers,
JaydaWg
Maybe.............................................
Yep, Tennessee. Amazing things was the guy who started the pump was standing in just the right spot. He survived. Had the production line been running it would have been much worse casualty wise.
Yes it was a good thing that there were no deaths. A laundry in St Louis had a boiler explosion where the shell traveled over 500 feet and killed 3
Bigbore5
Single-Sixer
I build and service Safety Valves for a living. It can get interesting, especially when lift testing a valve in line and under pressure.
Our shop is fully certified and licensed. Every tech is factory trained. We strictly follow manufacturer specs and boiler inspection codes. Unfortunately, not all shops do. Nor do customers always follow the guidelines as to operating pressures, especially in paper mills.
I have worked on several places where you have to wonder how nobody has been killed yet.
Our shop is fully certified and licensed. Every tech is factory trained. We strictly follow manufacturer specs and boiler inspection codes. Unfortunately, not all shops do. Nor do customers always follow the guidelines as to operating pressures, especially in paper mills.
I have worked on several places where you have to wonder how nobody has been killed yet.
After I retired as Chief Engineer I was offered a job in a shop that certified and repaired gauges and safety valves. I declined the offer because of medical issues at the time. The safety valves we use are Kunkle and we have them tested and certified yearly.
Steam can and will kill you if you are not properly trained. I was working in a tunnel on 40psi steam lines coming from a 150psi system. These were 18 inch lines with warm up valves around the main isolation valves. The proper procedure was to crack the warm up valves and slowly equalize the lines. I was in the far end of the tunnel and heard the steam come on full blast and hitting the cold lines. I started running at full speed back towards the idiot I was working with. I had to jump over and duck under piping and crawl under 2 other main lines to get to him. He saw me running and did the worst thing he could do... He started laughing at me and asked what was wrong. I winged the valve closed as fast as I could and told him that he could have killed us both and he said that he opened the line fully because it was almost break time. His head made the most satisfying bonking sounds as I bashed it off the concrete wall... I refused to work with him after that and told the boss I didn't feel safe with him.
Ah yes! The days when you could kick an idiots butt for stupid stunts and the boss would back you up.
Last place I fired boilers they had a 250 Cleaver Brooks as a backup. I came in one morning and a bottom hand hole was leaking. The maintenance supervisor just said that this happens all the time. When I told him the gasket could blow he said that happens sometimes too.
When I had it shut down, depressured and cool I checked the marking surface inside the shell. Looked like the surface of the moon. It took me several weeks to smooth it out, working when time allowed.
Last place I fired boilers they had a 250 Cleaver Brooks as a backup. I came in one morning and a bottom hand hole was leaking. The maintenance supervisor just said that this happens all the time. When I told him the gasket could blow he said that happens sometimes too.
When I had it shut down, depressured and cool I checked the marking surface inside the shell. Looked like the surface of the moon. It took me several weeks to smooth it out, working when time allowed.
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