I am curious what chemicals/processes other organizations use in boiler water (pre)treatment. also what is the condition of your water supply?

I am curious how you test your supply water and how often? Pool water test kits? Other sources of testing supplies?

Caveat: everybody has different conditions to treat, and what works for one may not suit another.

Short version - hard water with plentiful runoff from snowmelt. Bought treatment from the same firm that tested. 14 day washouts with about 25 gallons of mud.

Got disinterested third party to test - cut back about 80% of the treatments we were using, installed water softener, 30 day washout 3 gallons of mud. Only chemicals were to deoxygenate and keep scale in solution.

Implemented twice weekly tests to adjust treatment and blowdown schedule.

There are two treatment systems being offered which claim to fit all users - one is a lot of expensive chemistry, the other the Porta plan, free for all to try. Check out the ULTIMATE STEAM PAGES for more about Porta's work.

dave

Thanks for the plug, Dave.

Martyn Bane (of the UK) has a webpage with details on the Porta water treatment system at:

http://www.portatreatment.com/

It is partially based on the very successful TIA treatment developed and used in France, which supposedly put most of their boiler repair shops out of business long before steam operation ended. Porta knew how simple and fool-proof a treatment system needed to be to be reliably implemented by steam operating crews, especially in third-world countries where he did most of his work, and his system was developed with this in mind.

One of the major benefits of the Porta treatment is that the steam produced by the boiler becomes much purer, reducing carryover into the dry pipe, superheater elements, and cylinders, which improves power and improves lubrication conditions in the cylinders, minimizing wear.

As I understand it, Martyn will supply a document explaining the Porta treatment in detail upon request.

We test our supply water for TDS(Total Disolved Solids) and for Hardness. Our water is supplied from the city and we then run it through a softener. Our treatment is supplied through Aquatrol.