Steam boiler tube testing firm recommendation

RayWohlfarth

Howdy all,
I have a firetube boiler with a leaking boiler tube and would like to have the tube tested to find the cause of the failure. Do you know of any tube testing companies? Thanks all.

EBEBRATT-Ed

There are companies that can test installed tubes to estimate the remaining life by checking the wall thickness. I know this is done with large chillers, Google :" Eddy Current testing" I am sure they can test boiler tubes as well.

As far as tubes that are already failed, I would think a "good" water treatment tech would be the answer.

trouble is finding a 'good" one is the problem. A lot of them are mere snake oil salesmen.

I would call the facilities managers at the biggest hospital, largest insurance company, largest college etc any other power plants and see if you can find a consensus as to who they use in your area.

RayWohlfarth

Thank you sir. You make some great points

ScottSecor

We used to work on many scotch marine style boilers (steam and hot water) on a regular basis. Today there are only a handful of them left that we service regularly. The vast majority of what we worked on were steel fire tube style boilers.

That being said, I've never met a tube testing company (non-destructive) that I would trust. I'm not suggesting there aren't any that are reputable, we just never found them here in NJ.

What we did was we hired welders (that also rolled tubes) and had them inspect the boiler internals, fortunately for us these guys were honest and very knowledgeable. The welders also held a 'R' stamp if I remember correctly that was require for this type of work. We would always order about double the amount of failed tubes before they started. Once on site the welders would remove the known leaking tubes. Once removed you could easily see the rest of the outside of the tubes (they always rotted from the outside) and the water side of the tube sheet. The welders would replace the remaining tubes based on their appearance. Again this was a while ago, but I seem to remember that the tubes with the most build up (sediment/rust) were the first ones to fail. Ideally, we would replace all of the tubed, but this was a rare event.

Boiler treatment certainly helps, but again many representatives that I met were strictly interested in selling product. If you find a good one, your ahead of the game.

RayWohlfarth

Scott Thanks It is kinda frustrating as we are stuck in the middle and up to us to prove our equipment was not at fault. The factory says the boiler is out of warranty and the water treatment "expert" says his product was in the system.

nicholas bonham-carter

As we have seen many times here, the "so called water treatment" can be the downfall of many a good boiler.
I would advise boiler manufacturers to obtain water samples at the site to have them analyzed in order to prevent these problems.--NBC

jumper

Original tube or replacement? I was told in the seventies that quality had gone down.