Burnham d leg leaking

Unknown

The Burnham Commercial Steel products are manufactured by a seperate division of our company and that is who you should be directing this question to. The contact info is as follows. They will be glad to answer your questions.

Glenn

Burnham Commercial Steel Boilers

(717)397-4701

Attn: Reese Newton

[Deleted User]

Burnham Boiler Mud Leg Leaking

We have run across a Burnham boiler 896,000 firetube boiler with a powerflame buner, that has a leak in the mud leg. The boiler is only 8 years old and has had some of the tubes replace a couple years ago. The maintenance man said there was a build up it the mud legs when the boiler was opened up which he cleaned before we looked at the site.
The boiler repair man cut out the bad section before we were asked to look at the problem. The mainteneace man has said that the water meter he installed in the feed line (this is hot water heating boiler) indicated he had not fed water in to the system last year. Would water quality cause the mud legs to rot? This doesn't seem like any boiler shock would cause the mud legs to be damaged, does it?
Could the mud legs be damaged if there were a build up? They were cleaned out once a year.

Unknown

Mike

> We have run across a Burnham boiler 896,000

> firetube boiler with a powerflame buner, that has

> a leak in the mud leg. The boiler is only 8 years

> old and has had some of the tubes replace a

> couple years ago. The maintenance man said there

> was a build up it the mud legs when the boiler

> was opened up which he cleaned before we looked

> at the site. The boiler repair man cut out the

> bad section before we were asked to look at the

> problem. The mainteneace man has said that the

> water meter he installed in the feed line (this

> is hot water heating boiler) indicated he had not

> fed water in to the system last year. Would water

> quality cause the mud legs to rot? This doesn't

> seem like any boiler shock would cause the mud

> legs to be damaged, does it? Could the mud legs

> be damaged if there were a build up? They were

> cleaned out once a year.



Glenn Stanton

Manager of Training

Burnham Hydronics

www.burnham.com

RonWHC

If fire tubes

were replaced, & the mud legs not cleaned after the replacement, the crud dislodged from the tubes as they were pulled thru the tube sheet could have dropped to the water (mud) leg. A buildup of crud that keeps water from getting to that area could cause the steel to fail.

8 years seems kind of short for tube failure in a water boiler, especially if there are no system leaks. I would check for possible causes. Over firing, thermal shock, too much flow, or improper near boiler piping could be the culprits. Then again, system leaks could have been fixed before the meter was installed. You might be dealing w/ the aftermath of those leaks.

R. Newton

Mudleg buildup

I agree with Ron: some of the mudleg buildup may have occurred due to the scale on the old tubes falling down inside the boiler when the tubes were removed. But what concerns me is that there is that much buildup in a water boiler at all. Ideally, a water boiler would be filled at startup, and only a very small amount of water ever added to it during its life: it is supposed to be operating in a closed system. It should not require cleaning on the waterside. The first fill will precipitate all the minerals that exist in the water, and the dissolved oxygen will be used up quickly in oxidizing boiler steel and piping material, leaving just a thin inert coating. After that, the water is basically harmless to the boiler. But adding fresh water is going to introduce minerals which then precipitate out and fall into the mudlegs, as well as oxygen that will corrode the steel.

The bottom three inches or so of the mudlegs are protected from the direct radiant heat of the furnace by the floor refractory, but if the mud buildup approaches the height of the refractory, it would tend to insulate the steel from water cooling with the result of deformation of the steel and resulting cracked welds or the steel itself.

As Ron noted, the material buildup may be left over from a previous condition. A water meter was installed at someone's recommendation, probably because it was known or suspected that leaks existed previously?