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Boiler-Safety Lessons in a School

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HeatingHelp
HeatingHelp Administrator Posts: 637
edited November 2017 in THE MAIN WALL
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Boiler-Safety Lessons in a School

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JohnNY

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  • BobC
    BobC Member Posts: 5,478
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    Those men did not know what they were dealing with and luckily did not have to pay for their mistake.

    Almost 40 years ago I noted a strange smell in my back hall and found it was coming from the cellar. As I walked through my section of the cellar I saw a red glow on the side of my landlords old Delco Steam boiler. I shut the emergency power switch for the boiler off and stood a distance away while that red spot slowly faded.

    I called the landlords daughter who lived on the other side of town and told her what I did. After that boiler was replaced the landlords only comment was "Why didn't you just fill it with water"? A lot of these old steamers did not have a LWCO so you were in peril if the water level got too low.

    Bob
    Smith G8-3 with EZ Gas @ 90,000 BTU, Single pipe steam
    Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
    3PSI gauge
  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,525
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    When I started in "73" I found a few (not many) old steam jobs...residential that didn't have low water cutoffs. I always wondered since they were all coal conversions why no LWCO were installed when the oil burners were installed. Some of these dated back to the 20s so I guess back then they were not mandatory. All they had was a pressure control, thermostat, safety valve and a stack switch. It was still quite common when I started to find old burners installed in the 20s still running after 50 years. Used to look for the old oil burner permits hanging on the wall
  • RayWohlfarth
    RayWohlfarth Member Posts: 1,481
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    Bob If you had added water, we would not be chatting. Im glad you chose to shut it off.
    Ed, it frustrates me when safety controls or lack of them can be tolerated on jobs.
    Ray Wohlfarth
    Boiler Lessons
  • BobC
    BobC Member Posts: 5,478
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    @RayWohlfarth That just proves God was looking after me. Back then I had no idea how steam boilers worked but having worked in electrical engineering for a while I did have a good grasp of physics and something in the back of my mind told me to turn it off and walk away.

    On another matter I just heard from the service organization that left my steam boiler with a printout that indicated 270ppm of CO. When I checked that with my old Bacharach analyzer (that had a failing 02 sensor) it was close to 700 and climbing. Out of an abundance of caution I bought a new Testo 310 and that confirmed my readings.

    That proved I can't trust others to do this sort of thing for me so I'll have to hobble down the basement to do it myself. I did tell their service manager to check the calibration on their meter.

    I think they chased the efficiency number a bit to far. They indicated 85.7% efficiency, after I adjusted the air band I got 84.9% with good O2 and CO2 numbers to go with it.

    Bob
    Smith G8-3 with EZ Gas @ 90,000 BTU, Single pipe steam
    Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
    3PSI gauge
  • RayWohlfarth
    RayWohlfarth Member Posts: 1,481
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    Bob That is so wrong. I tell customers to ask to see the calibration stickers or certificate. Its expensive to calibrate them but it is a cost of doing busiiness.
    Ray Wohlfarth
    Boiler Lessons
    geno907
  • mikeg2015
    mikeg2015 Member Posts: 1,194
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    Years ago at the big industrial factory I worked at, they lost feedwater to a large gas fired combined cycle co-generation plant. It has about a 80' tall HRSG (Heat recovery steam generator) on the exhaust outlet of the gas turbine with supplemental duct burners to add energy to it before it goes to the steam turbine, then to supply process steam to the plant. When water levels dropped, failed level sensors did not shut the system down. Ironically, a cheap $200 flow switch on the pump suction might have caught this. But it had $50k in "sophisticated" highly redundant electronic controls no so different from what a nuclear reactor plant would have.

    When the fire department arrives, it was a 80' of red glowing metal. They smartly knew better than to cool it with water. They basically looked at it, made sure there was no risk of a secondary fire and the fuel gas system was disabled and secured and left. It took I think over 3 days to cool off. It was -5F outside that morning and never got over 20F those 3 days. They has a low of frozen pipes and struggled to get back up boilers online once it had cooled off.

    To give you and idea of the size of that co-generation plant, at full capacity, it generated I believe 40MW of electricity. I had a whole building to supply it RO water to it as much of the steam as "consumed" rather than recovered.

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