Book Review: Boiler Operators Manual Has Great Tips On Boiler Cleaning and Maintenance
“Boiler tube failures have been the number one availability problem for utilities with fossil plants for as long as reliable statistics have been kept in individual utilities and by nations.” That juicy little quote comes courtesy of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) as part of an article about power plant downtime in Powermag.com. It’s yet another confirmation that boiler cleaning is key to continual, efficient operation.
So what, as a boiler operator, can you do to reduce this number one cause of downtime? Can we suggest you read a book?
It probably isn’t now and won’t ever be an Amazon or New York Times best seller, but if you are in the business of running and maintaining boilers, it might be a book that belongs on your maintenance department’s shelves. That is, of course, if it’s not already there! We’re talking about the book “Heating Boiler Operators Manual: Maintenance, Operation and Repair” by Mohammed A. Malek.
Published in 2006 by McGraw Hill and weighing in at 352 pages, it is a detailed and thorough look at real-life operation, maintenance and repair of boilers – in short, a real page-turner.
We especially like Chapter 17. The chapter begins with a review of the importance and the benefits of proper maintenance of your boiler and especially its tubes. Chart 17.1 reviews the data we’ve talked about many times before in this blog, about how even a very thin coating of soot on your tubes can reduce thermal efficiency and significantly increase your energy costs.
Follow-on segments of this chapter compare and contrast mechanical versus chemical cleaning. With mechanical boiler cleaning, using a system like the Goodway system pictured in the book, you simply insert the motor-driven cleaning head into the tube and pull the trigger. The system does all the work, giving you a sparkling clean tube in seconds. The system’s vacuum sucks the loosened debris right out of the tube, and you can move on to the next one.
Chemical boiler cleaning, by comparison, requires the calculation of amounts and concentrations of chemicals such as muriatic acid and sodium dichromate and then soda ash to neutralize them after you are done. Additionally, cleaning must be followed by rinsing and then the addition of even more chemicals.
The rest of the chapter spells out the weekly and monthly boiler cleaning tasks and annual inspections that will help you keep your boilers in tip-top condition.
In this era of increasing pressure from building owners to spend less on maintenance yet still do more, this is one area where you may actually be able to do so!
Rich Silverman
Goodway Blogging Team
Image courtesy of Goodway Technologies
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Boiler Cleaning
I am curious about how much boilers have or have not changed over the years. Is a boiler made today pretty much the same way it was made let’s say 20 years ago ?
Tim
If you are in the business you know that they’ve changed quite a bit. There’s a larger variety of boilers on the market need, customized specifically to a users needs. Additionally, the technology to manage the efficiency has changed a ton. Thanks for the comment.