Showerthought: That before and after on a 20 year old boiler firetube

I was helping a guy swap out an old Cleaver-Brooks boiler last month and we got to see the firetube condition before we disconnected it. The thing had been running on untreated water for like 20 years, and the tube sheet was covered in this hard scale about a quarter inch thick. We pulled a section of tube out and it looked like a rock had grown around it. After we cleaned one of the spare tubes with a needle gun and some chemical soak, the difference was night and day. The metal underneath was smooth and had that original dark color, not all pitted and crusty. It really made me think about how much we overlook water treatment on these older units. Has anyone else seen a tube that bad after years of neglect?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaretk897d ago

Ngl, that scale was probably mostly calcium carbonate not actual rock.

michael6936d ago

A CLR soak cleared mine right up, @margaretk89.