Boiler Room Dangers: That Smell Could Save Your Life or Warn you of Disaster. This weeks video

UhOh. Softener salt making corrosive air ? I hadnt thought of that, and my softener lives in my home boiler room.

Would it be a good idea to turn off the boiler (once it's done its current cycle) before dumping salt into the bin ? Usually, there's a plume of salt-dust during that operation. Once it settles out, any potential intake into the (natural draft) boiler should be minimized.

Chlorine in pool operations can be pretty harsh on the surrounding environment, for sure. Where I work, things just slowly corrode away in the pool mechanical room. Valves etc are plastic , but pumps and boiler are subject to that corrosion.

A minor add about hydrogen sulphide — yes indeed it smells like rotten eggs. If you smell it at all. The ringer in that deck is that if the concentration is high enough, you won't smell it — it will knock out your sense of smell before it registers. It shouldn't be that high in a boiler room — but it is one of the real hazards in waste water work. And it is lethal…

Treat anything that might be a confined space as if it were until you can probe otherwise!

And if,, God forbid, your buddy passes out in what might be a confined space, don't go in after him or her — get the EMTs and fire rescue people, or someone else trained in confined space rescue to help.

Am I slightly paranoid? Um… yeah.