Temperature Crayon

Jeff Elston

Looking for a good source for diagnosing bad traps.  Any help would be great. 

Rod

IR Thermometer

Hi-  Get an IR thermometer!  I use a Ryobi Tek 4 Model RP4030, They're available in the Home Depot.tool dept.  Compare the temperature of the inlet side and the outlet side. On a good trap there should be at least a 10 degree plus difference,  Taking the readings from fairly close up as the farther you stand back, the wider the sampling area is.



Here's a link to IR pictures of steam traps on Gerry Gill's website:

http://www.gwgillplumbingandheating.com/webapp/GetPage?pid=496

The upper picture shows a bad trap and the lower picture a good trap. Note the temperature readings.  Take a look around this website. Gery Gill is a very experienced steam pro in the Cleveland  and his website has a lot of good information on steam systems.

- Rod

Jeff Elston

Camera

I know of this method as well it seemed I remember the cameras being quite pricey 

Rod

IR Thermometer

Hi Jeff-  

The IR cameras are very useful but are pricey. The Ryobi IR gun thermometer I mentioned is quite reasonable. The link to the IR pictures was so that you would have an idea of what temperatures to expect on good traps and failed ones.  The IR thermometer has a lot of other uses. I used it to detect a failing circuit breaker and also a bad fan bearing.

- Rod

Jean-David Beyer

Other uses for infra-red thermometers.

I used to work in a large building complex. The main wiring was aluminum. They checked each connections with an IR thermometer to see when to tighten the bolts.



This is a picture of the large building complex:



http://www.preservationnation.org/assets/photos-images/issues/modernism-recent-past/bell-labs-holmdel-2-1-1-300.JPG



Those D-shaped pools (in front) are heat sinks for the air conditioning. The building is 6 stories high. When the pools get too hot, they spray the water into the air for evaporative cooling.