High Pressure

Owen

How much damage is likely to traps, steam coils, vents, modulating valves & etc. with pressure over 3# in big, medium and small school buildings? Some are up to 8#.

If and when I regain control of the pressure, what then will I want to be on the look-out for?

I have gotten the nod to turn three small buildings down to 1/2#-2#, which is where I had them ten weeks ago but we won't go there.

Also, problems start to show their ugly heads as the pressure goes down and then the whining starts. There is some hope that I will be given some funding to deal with the problems, but probably not much.

And then there is the big enchilada, the High School which has three heat exchangers that are old and no doubt full of hard water scale, and don't do much in the way of exchanging heat.

nicholas bonham-carter

Scaly heat exchangers

Those H-E's may have to be flushed out first, as they might be the reason for cranking up the pressure in the first place. The scale will have come from too much makeup water forced under extreme pressure into the passages.

As far as traps go, get an ir thermometer, and start looking for the obviously failed ones, and then start on the subtle ones which are closing due to steam in the returns back-feeding them.

Don't give up the goal of making the system as quiet, economical, and comfortable as it was when first installed!--nbc