Top 10 Boiler Chemical Mistakes

Over the years of consulting, testing, and selling boiler chemicals. Listed below are easily the most common items overlooked and taken for granted. These items typically will lead to downtime, boiler scaling or rusting, or compete boiler replacement. Please time 2 minutes and read though our "Top 10" list we have identified as frequently over looked items when performing or setting up your steam boiler testing program.

Top 10 items overlooked items when performing steam boiler water testing.

1. Assign one person only as the lead person responsible for all aspects of boiler testing and monitoring. Assign one or two back ups if possible if he or she is out. Utilities are commonly over looked and many times if you have too many people with minimal responsibility over the boiler nothing gets done. Testing is not performed or "pencil whipping" of numbers become a common practice. Trust me on this! 
2. Always record your data on a daily log sheets and submit them weekly to the supervisor for his review. Simply put. Checks and balances increases the chance of people performing their duties.
3. Record chemical inventory daily/weekly and monitor the daily/weekly usage rates. Log when boiler bottom blowdowns are performed. When an boiler water upset occurs this information is equally as important as boiler water testing to trouble shoot the problem.
4. Check the softener brine tank levels and maintain the salt at proper levels. Do not over fill the brine tank. Too much salt may reduce the required volume of brine needed for a effective softener regeneration. Also, over filling the salt may lead to a empty dome within the brine tank.
5. Check the hardness in the boiler water. When you are performing a test, it is a snap shot at what is happening at that time. Checking the hardness in the boiler water will confirm the softener is working between softener hardness checks. This will tell you if your softener is operating 24/7.
   
6. Always obtain a cooled water sample through some form of boiler sample cooler. If you are obtaining a sample that is flashing steam, your results will not be accurate.
7. Let the water sample flush for 2 minutes before obtaining a sample for testing. 
8. Check the sulfite residual on the boiler water sample first. If the sample sits around for a period of time, oxygen in the air may reduce the sulfite readings in the water sample.
9. Clean and rinse your testing equipment twice before using it and once after using it.
   
10. Keep all your reagents in one area. Preferably in a test cabinet near the boiler. This will ensure the testing reagents and test kits are kept clean.

Most of these items also apply for hot water boiler corrosion testing programs as well. Watch free online boiler training videos.