steam blowdowns

kevin coppinger_4

a service/no heat call at a rental duplex 2 boilers 1 was down....I walked in and took noticed it was a steam system...Great! Old asbestos coated steamer (W-Mc), coal converted to oil. First notcied it was very low on water(none in gauge), then out of oil...the problem. I asked the Landlord what is his blowdown schedule and the last time is had been done was...well in 11 years I have never done it!!!! Talk about WOHA! There is no auto feeder all by manually opening a valve.The other boiler on the other side has never been done in 11 yrs either...He wants to replace both soon.

My question is. by going to the probe type LWCO and a unimatch feeder does this make a steam system "maintainence free"? kpc

Steamhead

You still need

to check on them once a week. The probe eliminates blowing down a float-type control, but I like to check the probe's operation every month or so. Also, since you're not blowing down weekly, the boiler water can get quite dirty.

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Al Letellier

blowdown

No sudh thing as maintenance free on a steam system. Even with the electronic LWCO and feeder, as previously posted, visual inspection is of high priority for any system. The thing to remenber is that the probes can and will get dirty and need to be pulled yearly as part of the annual boiler maintenance. Saw one cracked boiler last week with a probe gummed up with sludge the size of a baseball, soaking wet and giving a false signal........pop went the boiler!!!

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