Toured a foundry today with........

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

well spent! Toured a foundry today. Dark, dirty and loud with molten metal being poured into cast iron boiler sections - think Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs) & you'll have the picture. A heart-thumping two-thumbs-up tour. Lots of recycled metal goes into these boiler sections - and lots of old cast iron rads were in the bone-pile out in the yard. Kinda heart-warming to know the old gals will live on - reincarnated in boilers that qualify for LEED points.

Check out Pete's new line & tour the foundry here: www.knowsomethingmore.com

ScottMP

Cool stuff

Its always fun to see that stuff. Molten steel gets the heart going !!!

FIELD TRIP !!

Scott

ScottMP

My high school teacher

brought us to a shop that did sand casting and we got to watch the pour .... Awesome.

Scott

ScottMP

double post

ScottMP

triple post

Damn that expresso....

mtfallsmikey

Was cool also to see

The York chiller plant in your hometown, Dave. Later that day: HD, then WGAL transmitter site.

Jed_2

Dave

I'd love to take that tour. But, I have a question. From what you have seen and learned about that boiler, does it have competitive relevance in the contemparary mod/con scheme of things? It's such a dizzying market.

Thanks
Jed

tgm

quite a few years back i used to work at east jordan iron works in michigan in the melt dept. it was pretty cool working with liquid iron all day. if we had a big foundry like that here in southern maine i would probably be working there, i really enjoyed that job. guess i was destined to always be playin with fire be it a burner or molten metal

Larry (from OSHA)

primary metal industries

It is amazing to see how stuff is made from raw materials to finished product. There is a fairly wide range of "how it's done" when talking about foundries.

Dave, did you have your CO monitor with you on your tour? We are working with an iron foundry now that has been in production for many, many years and the CO levels are really, really bad. When you say it was dark, dirty and loud I think about how much "bad stuff workers are breathing in and if the right protections are in place.

Conversely, a recent inspection at another iron foundry that was built less than 10 years ago was literally a breath of fresh air. The range of working conditions between some places and some other places is more than astounding.

I'm really glad that you were able to tour this plant and more importantly, that this type of manufacturing is still being done here in the states.

From looking at the website, I suspect that Mestek is trying to do the right thing for their people. It's a tough industry. Thanks again for sharing.

Larry

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

a frank conversation

Interestingly, this boiler is a mini-me version of their much larger models that hot 1-million or 2-million BTUs (also with 5:1 turn-down modulation). We discussed a few issues I saw regarding servicing (from a tech's viewpoint) and they listened - and, more importantly - they said they'd make immediate changes. They are very interested in contractor-feedback.

Their single greatest challenge is the weight.

Life-span via testing indicates a 60- to 100-year life expectancy.

Evidently there is an allowance for 5% fudge-factor when mfgrs state efficiency in their literature. So, if your product is 92.7% efficient, you can inflate that by 5%. Other mfgrs can then purchase your product and do their own testing & if you're off by more than 5%, the consequences can be (from what I was told) pretty ugly. All of which leads right back to what has been discussed both here & elsewhere - the lack of a real-world test scenario whereby modulating condensing boilers could be tested across their full range of capability.

Dave Yates (GrandPAH)

safety

Larry,

My cousin works as a safety inspector for the insurance industry and has spent weeks in foundries where they pour much larger molds. One ladel carried 35-tons of molten metal per trip!

During our tour, the safety director pointed out many of the measures (and gear) taken in recent years to ensure employee safety - as safe as this type of work gets, I'd guess. He discussed, at great length, the respirators and air-quality surrounding the employees with particular emphasis on containing silica-based sand from being inhaled.

Not sure of the CO issues, but there were lots of ventillators and a ton of fresh air being introduced. I expected a sweat-shop temp-wise, but found the plant bordered on being cold.

Tom Hopkins

Never heard of a 5% "fudge-factor". When a manufacturer states an AFUE, they must be within 5% of claimed number during a DOE audit. 92.7% AFUE could test as low as 88% during an audit and still be OK. This allows for manufacturing tolerance. There has been talk of tightening up on this number to something like 1%, but I doubt it can happen for a number of reasons... but the gov't is a strange beast.

This is not a lisence for manufacturers to inflate numbers, however. That is a no-no and supporting lab data must be on hand to prove the boilers capabilities.

Being part of GAMA's (IBR) certification program is a good thing.

This should be 99% correct... as I understand it.