Lattner Boiler Re-tube

jeffs

I have a customer with a 60 Horse medium pressure Lattner Steam boiler. The boiler is about 6 years old. Opened it up this morning for annual inspection and found about 5 tubes leaking. Had my water treatment sub look at it & he says that it is normal wear. All leaks are in the rear of the boiler in the bottom two rows. I am replacing the two entire bottom rows as a preventive measure to ensure that we do not have any problems during the heating season. I wanted to get opinion from some seasoned wetheads. Is this normal after only six years? My water treatment guy is recommending a water softener be installed on the feedwater. What will this do? Where do I look to learn more about tubes & how to identify the root cause of problems? Are there any specific books that you guys would recommend I read to learn more about the proper water treatment for this type of system? Right now I am kind of at the mercy of my sub. Thank you.

oil-2-4-6-gas

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6 years is not normal wear(but there are exceptions i work on a lot of larger commercial scotch boilers and older Federal bricksets most are 20-50 years old 90 % of them have minimal trouble as far as leaking tubes but there are 1 or 2 that are a constant problem) you can send the tubes to have them checked --could be low grade tubes---(there are different grades)could be stress cracks from too much heat if your not running right or bad water --does anyone flush out the boiler blowdown the bottom drains do you do a waterside cleaning on an annual basis you can also send out the water to have it analyzed you might have some really bad water