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Posted by BT Bill on March 27, 2002 at 15:38:35:
In Reply to: How fast can we get our boiler started? posted by Gary Grimes on March 26, 2002 at 17:42:31:
: We had a similar problem with our steam host. For a while we fired the stand-by boiler 5-6 times per day at low fire (15-30 minutes) to keep it hot. Steam coils were put in the mud drums later on and did keep the boiler warm with 50-75psi on the drum. But the normal operating pressure was 400 so it still took a while to get it up on line.
The eventual fix that worked out quite well was a let down station at the cogen. If the cogen tripped off line, residual steam would dump to the process line going to the steam host. This usually bought us enough time to fire the warm boiler and bring it up on line. Very rarely did this affect the steam hosts header pressure to much, the exception was winter time with a very high steam demand around the clock. Even though with our host a 50 psi drop in the header was OK. It will depend on your hosts needs.
This will all depend on your steam hosts requirements for steam and your ability to modify the existing system.
I would not reccommend overfiring a cold or even warm boiler. The rule of thumb is low fire until your are up to header pressure and slowly increase from there.