blowing the whistle and propane

[dirty.old.fisherman]

Question 1: I am having trouble blowing the whistle when underway. All I get is hot water up the six foot long tube. Will a steam trap help ? I checked on line and they can cost between $300 and $600 depending on the brand. I was thinking that shortening the tube up the stack would help. Any suggestions ?


Question 2: We Have purchased a Bayou Classic 228,000 b.t.u. burner and two twenty pound fiberglass propane bottles. It was taking 45 minutes to get up 45 pounds of steam with our water tube boiler when we used self lighting briquettes and fire log slices. Cooling it down was another task that took up to 45 minutes. We believe that when we turn off the gas the cool down time will be shortened to an acceptable amount.


Question 3: Is it advisable to install an automatic igniter for the propane burner ?

[fredrosse]

Question 1: I am having trouble blowing the whistle when underway. All I get is hot water up the six foot long tube. Will a steam trap help ? I checked on line and they can cost between $300 and $600 depending on the brand. I was thinking that shortening the tube up the stack would help. Any suggestions ?

ANS: You would need a separator tank at the end of the pipe to use a steam trap, I assume this may not be practical for a small steamboat installation. I buy steam traps all the time on ebay, at about 10% of the prices you mention above. There is an older thread about this topic titled “Whistle Pipe”. There you will find a drawing of a small separator tank for a whistle, and the small (1/4 inch OD tube) drain line could be just directed back into a water tank or overboard, no trap needed.

When blowing a whistle, you have to heat up the pipe to the whistle, and the whistle, before the sound gets good. I just live with the warmup delay, and water condensing in the pipe, the rain.


Question 2: We Have purchased a Bayou Classic 228,000 BTU burner and two twenty pound fiberglass propane bottles. It was taking 45 minutes to get up 45 pounds of steam with our water tube boiler when we used self lighting briquettes and fire log slices. Cooling it down was another task that took up to 45 minutes. We believe that when we turn off the gas the cool down time will be shortened to an acceptable amount.

ANS: I bought the Bayou 210,000 BTU burner, but could only get about 50,000 BTU out of it before the flames lifted off the burner and it went out. Don’t know about their newer burner, but it looks about the same to me. I currently use four burners from a house heating boiler, at a little over 110,000 BTU/hr (352 burner holes, 1/8 inch diameter each) This setup brings my VFT Boiler up to 100 PSI in about 15-20 minutes. A watertube boiler typically has less metal and water than a firetube type, so heatup times could be shorter, assuming you have enough burner BTU capacity.

Question 3: Is it advisable to install an automatic igniter for the propane burner ?

ANS: A pilot light for the burners is a good idea, lit continuously during an outing. I have a mirror mounted under the firebox so I can see the pilot is lit before turning on the main propane supply. It is potentially dangerous to turn on your propane burner without a sure ignition source immediately available. This is because propane is a gas which is considerably more dense than air, so if you release propane into the boat, it will collect in the low areas of the bilges, and may give quite a hair singing (or face burning) puff if you then try to light the burner manually.

In the past I have used a common propane torch to light the burner, the torch is lit, placed into the ignightor hole, then the propane is turned on. The constant pilot light is a safer arrangement, but you should have a way to VERIFY that the pilot is lit before turning on the main propane. Sometimes wind around the boat could blow out the pilot, so I use a strong pilot light, which can keep the boiler warm when the main burner is turned off.