Took me 10 hours to find a 2 inch crack in a furnace tube near Gary

Had a low pressure issue on a firetube boiler last month. Checked all the obvious spots first. Gaskets, tube sheets, the works. Nothing. Went blind staring at that firebox for hours. Finally ran a hydro test and saw bubbles forming right along a tube near the back wall. Ten hours for a crack you could hide with your thumb. Anyone else have a tiny leak that took forever to track down?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenixgonzalez1mo ago

Started with a small thing but I should mention that hydro testing on a firetube boiler can actually miss hairline cracks if the test pressure isn't high enough. I had one where we pumped to normal working pressure and saw nothing, then bumped it up to 1.5 times that and suddenly got a stream of bubbles right along a tube end. The crack was so tight it only opened up under the extra stress. Might be worth checking what pressure you used during your test just to make sure you didn't have a similar situation.

alice_harris351mo ago

Bet on it - we always test at 1.5x to catch those hidden ones.