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Posted by Amy on February 27, 2004 at 16:34:15:
In Reply to: Re: Loss of water posted by Dan on February 26, 2004 at 21:39:54:
: Hi Dan. Yeah, I would hope that any experienced operating engineer would know about shrink and swell, when a boiler is brought on line, or when one has tripped. The guy never said the boiler tripped. He just said that management was wanting him to fill the boiler as soon as possible when the water level was lost and out of sight. Yes, the water "shrinks" when a boiler trips, but not to the point of being out of sight. He said he lost the water level. I agree...not much information to go on, and many things could be the problem....it's hard to tell when you are not there. I think this has always been a friendly forum for discussion, and have seen unreliable advice given, but I really think that it is best to give safe advice. I would think that if this guy was having another problem besides low water....he would have said so, though. From being an operator for years, and working with different operators for years over time....I really think this guy is just concerned about his boiler, and I think he knows that low water is a serious problem...sounds like he is fighting a battle with people who have barely ever seen a boiler telling him what to do....I've seen that many times before. But yeah....I agree w/you when it comes down to little info....and giving advice not having the whole picture. Hey this forum is just for discussion, and I don't think anyone is just blindly following people's advice as if it were the bible, though. I always enjoy the discussions here on this forum.:)
: Let me guess, you must be a state or insurrance inspector :)jk. I dont seem to recall him say that his supervsors were telling him to fill the boiler up with cold water when it goes low water. Look, if he has a water level problem then he needs to get it fixed. There is absolutly no reason for a boiler to trip on low water with the exception of mechanical failures with the boiler or aux. equipment or if the operator decided to blowdown the water column and forgot to hold down the bypass switch :) For all we know, his boiler is tripping on a limit device and by the time he looks at his boiler he sees the water level out of the glass and any "experienced operating engineer " should know that when any boiler trips on a limit or interlock, the water level drops out of the glass because of the rapid loss of heat collapsing the steam bubble formation in the tubes and the displacement goes away. How does any body know what kind of advice to give people when they don't give descent information. Lets just assume that he doesn't have a water level problem and his boiler tripped because his gas regulator took a dump and he tripped on low gas. Are you going to recommend that he wait all day long to let the boiler cool before he fills it back up and restarts it? Also asumming that they were able to determine the shutdown being caused by the regulator and were able to remidy the problem. All I see around here is people giving opinions based on little to no information and IMHO that could be just as dangerous and filling a hot boiler with cold water. He needs to first ask himself why did my boiler just trip? If he concludes that it was a water level trip whether it be from a first out annunciator, fireye diplay or alarm, then was it because of a tube failure, a drum level control problem with his feedwater valve or controls, did they cavitated their feed pumps, many more thing can go wrong that have nothing to do with the boiler proper and everyone here just told him to let it cool down before he restarts it. Assuming that he doesnt have a catostrophic failure with the boiler proper and by his comments, it leads me to believe that he doesn't by the fact that this is a reoccuring problem, you can fill a hot boiler right back up wilth hot feedwater without fear of blowing yourself up as long as you follow industry standard of no more than 75-100 degrees f /hour. He probably damaged his boiler more if this happens all the time and it countiniualy trips and he depressurizes the boiler more 100 degrees / hour if you were to corrilate pressure to tempuature from a typical steam table. Then again what do I know :)