TSP in the boiler water

[Lopez Mike]

Myself, I have to remove my safety valve at least every year for hydro and temporarily replace it with a plug.

I suspect we are over thinking this a bit. As Fred says, if your water is not acid and had the dissolved air boiled out of it before layup, you are unlikely to have much corrosion over an off season.

As I have freezing Winter weather occasionally and don't trust the electricity to stay on when I'm away, I blow down fairly hot in the fall and then use my trusty shop vac to snarf all the water out of the odd bits of piping. (Snarf is a technical term used often in my shop).

Inert gas might be fine but I have done all too much work inside one full sized locomotive boiler and my observation was that above the normal water level, the mill scale from 1929 was still there. Now below that line on this non-condensing unit, it was fairly rude.

Mike

[barts]

I built Otter's boiler in 1996; I've always laid it up wet since the design makes getting the boiler completely dry time consuming. I live in an area that doesn't have hard freezes, so whenever I won't use Otter for a week or more I blow down completely and fill the boiler with water w/ TSP. This has worked well so far.
TSP as water treatment seems to work quite well in steel boilers.

- Bart

[Mike Rometer]

I have just found out this company http://www.heritagesteamsupplies.co.uk has started supplying a boiler treatment dedicated especially to water-tube type boilers (initially Sentinal Steam wagons). It is made by B&V Water Treatment Ltd. and is called "Multitreat TV". Check out the site above for more detail.

I've no connection, just spotted the ad elsewhere.

[Lopez Mike]

Looks like good stuff.

It's not clear as too how much of the stuff is needed. I hope not too much as at $136 us for 12.5L it could become dear. I can buy a lot of TSP (admittedly not as sophisticated) for that much money.

Mike

[Ofcalipka]

So far I have been adding just under about 2 tablespoons worth when I fill the boiler with fresh water and 1 tablspoon worth to the water tank. So far thats been getting the Ph in my VFT-30 to about 9-10 after I run her up.

[Dhutch]

I have just found out this company http://www.heritagesteamsupplies.co.uk has started supplying a boiler treatment dedicated especially to water-tube type boilers (initially Sentinal Steam wagons). It is made by B&V Water Treatment Ltd. and is called "Multitreat TV". Check out the site above for more detail.

Yeah, focus appears to be on improving corrosion of the high temperature surfaces where there is fire directly onto the steam space.


https://www.heritagesteamsupplies.co.uk ... litreat-tv

A New Dedicated Water Treatment Solution for Sentinel Waggons, Locomotives and simliar vertical water tube boilers.

It is widely accepted that major corrosion of a typical Sentinel firebox is predominately to the metal surfaces around the variable water and steam interface and into the steam space. Proprietary water treatment soloutions work well with traditonal Tannin oxygen scavengers for protection of waterside metal surfaces from corrosion, but the extreme high temperatures of the firebox plate surfaces experienced in a Sentinel Firebox above the water / steam interface, reduces the effectiveness of Tannin as an oxygen scavenger, which can lead to differential high temperature corrosion within the steam space as well as differential stresses of the firebox plate.

Most proprietary water treatment solutions add further amounts of dissolved caustic salts which remain in the boiler water as steam flashes off. Within the steam space itself, water splashes up and over the hot firebox plate, flashing to steam as soon as it hits the hot surface and leaving in highly concentrated form the salts as a corrosive residue on the plate. Combined with the extremely high temperature, water and oxygen present, this situation becomes dynamic and highly corrosive. Similarly any carry over into the superheater coils has largely the same effect and potential 'pitting' of the internal surfaces of the superheater as a result.

Multitreat TV, is a high tech solution to help reduce the potential of this very high temperature corrosion that can take place around the water / steam interface. Not only does it contain a traditional tannin oxygen scavenger, but also a highly volatile oxygen scavenger that aggressively reduces the presence of any oxygen in the steam space.

Multitreat TV also does not contain any additional caustic salts that would otherwise add to the problem of salts that are left behind in a concentrated form on the otherwise bare metal surfaces in the steam space and superheater coils. However it can not, similarly to any other water treatment solution do anything about the existing dissolved chloride salts found in untreated feed water.

Multitreat TV also contains two polymer sludge conditioners to help disperse any suspended matter for better blowdown removal. This is important as it helps prevent the sludge building up in the bottom of the cross water tubes which in turn can accelerate corrosion at the bottom of the tubes. The sludge conditioners also help to modify the crystalline structure of any insoluble calcium and magnesium deposits which adhere to the heat exchange surfaces. This facilities crystal deformation and prevents sizeable crystal growth - again allowing better suspended solids removal via the blowdown.

It is important to establish a workable dosing and blowdown regime to maximise the results, but it is also appreciated that the quality of the feed water can not always be guaranteed. Multitreat TV, is also designed to cope with a variery of feed water qualities and dosing does not need to be a precise science.

Makes sense, and not something I have thought about as we run a VFT boiler.

However we use Multitreat TS in EmilyAnnes boiler, having been recommended it by a number of people.
That and in being one of the few options easily available to us here in the UK.

Hard to know how well it works against other options, but we got 16 years out of our tubes this time round, 19 years out of the original set before that.