Who needs water treatment?

[Marty_Knox]

I often get asked 'Why do I need to use water treatment?' I have found the best answer for that question - just show them these pictures.

[Kimball McGinley]

I always forget, are the stalactites the ones that hang from the top of the cave, or are those stalagmites?

Thanks for the very impressive photos! This is like a public service announcement1

[NP317]

WOW!!!
~RN

[Fender]

Marty,
The most common problems with model boilers (from my experience) is scale encrustation of the firebox tubesheet and/or water legs. In the case of the boiler shown, it is erosion of the stays at the crownsheet that is evident. Is this typical? Or is this the exception?
In your opinion, is the main problem lack of water treatment, or lack of boiler washing? Or something else?

[gwrdriver]

I always forget, are the stalactites the ones that hang from the top of the cave, or are those stalagmites?

Kimbal,
When I was about 8 years old I visited Carlsbad Caverns and was told a simple way to remember which is which. StalagMITES grow upward . . because it takes a great deal more "mite" to grown upward against gravity than down. StalagTITES grow done but they have to hang on "tite" to keep from falling from the ceiling.

[gwrdriver]

[snip]In the case of the boiler shown, it is erosion of the stays at the crownsheet that is evident. Is this typical? Or is this the exception?
In your opinion, is the main problem lack of water treatment, or lack of boiler washing? Or something else?

Dan,
Something I read years ago my shed some light on this. Steam, or more specifically the change of state from water to steam, is erosive and it is most erosive at the point where the change of state takes place, usually at the waterline. To me the photo illustrates this perfectly . . the point of greatest erosion is also the average location of the greatest change of state and would be primarily the result of boiling lots of water rather than a lack of treatment.

[PSeyfrit]

Now you all see why I needed a new boiler. Marty also found the crown sheet had thinned to 1/16 of an inch. The boiler had developed a leak on the crown sheet which was why it had failed inspection (and why I knew I needed a new boiler when I bought it). The scary part is it was steamed and used the year before it failed and had passed the yearly state inspection! I hope to take a bit better care of cleaning and drying it once it is back together.

[DavidPrice]

Marty,
I believe you have shared this before, but would you please let us know what your preferred boiler water treatment is?
Also, what do you do when putting the engine away in terms of washing, drying, etc.
The boiler you build for our 4-6-0 is great...excellent free steaming on coal...couldn't be better.
I'd like to keep it in decent shape down here in the Deep South with our soft water and hot/cold HUMID weather.
So, I'd love the opinion of the maestro of boilers...the new title I have just bestowed upon you.
David Price

[steamin10]

Marty: Nice cutaway, really shows the horror show of corrosion.

IMHO, every boiler used will fail eventually, it is boiler care and chems that determine if it goes now or later, in the scheme of things. Also, it is the reason boiler hydro tests are made to detect FLAWS before failure. Looking ahead, you can see that a 'repair' would be out of the ordinary, and not economic.

Soft water is less a problem, than hard water, like in my area. The calcium carbonate in the water decays into calcium, (stone, or water scale) and releases CO2, which makes carbonic acid at the point it separtes, and disolves things slowly. Most evident in condensate waters, that eat up active metals like zinc, aluminum, and etc unprotected steel and iron. Most CO2 from boiler waters are vented with the exhaust steam, unnoticed, but it is there, part of the corrosive atmosphere involved in steam.

Thanks for posting some great pics.

[ccvstmr]

Marty, having been involved in many industrial incident investigations...when I see something as you posted...more questions come to mind. Not sure you can answer these (nothing wrong with that), but...knowing the answer might help others in determining improved boiler design and operation. Thinking with my fingers, here's a few things that come to my mind...

- what kind of water was used? Hard, soft, other?
- what kind of boiler materials were used? sheet surfaces, stay bolts (the sheets in your cut-a-way don't look that bad), flues?
- how old was the boiler?
- how often was the boiler operated? 1x per week? 1x per month? other?
- how was it determined the boiler should be condemned? hydro test? water leaks? other?

If I think about this longer, I could probably come up with a few more items. Readers might have other questions as well. As noted, you might not be able to answer the questions above. But understanding how the boiler got to this condition goes a long way in determining proper boiler care (water treatment), operation and degradation prevention.

There's no doubt that good boiler care and operation will extend the life of a boiler...there's no way of knowing how long a boiler WILL live. With proper care and operation, will the boiler last another year, 5 years or longer? Without creating a side-by-side comparison, nobody can probably answer that. It's kind of like batteries...they have a limited life whether they're used hard or easy. At some point, the power source can't take a charge and needs to be replaced.

Thanks for sharing. Carl B.

[LVRR2095]

In looking at the photos what I notice is the very slight deformation of the crown sheet even though it is almost totally unsupported by crown stays. Also the fact that the mud legs are almost completely blocked with detritus.
This leads me to think that a Briggs type boiler would be just as effective with no problems with blocked mud legs....since there aren't any mud legs!
Keith

[Jtrain]

When I put my 3 1/2" gauge loco away for the winter I tried to dry the inside as best I could. Then my mig welder was in the way and saw the argon bottle. So I displaced the air in the boiler with argon.