Whether it may be due to an emergency, company maintenance standards, government regulations, or impending facility upgrades, the need to replace a boiler is inevitable. Once a replacement is required—regardless of whatever the reason may be—a temporary or auxiliary boiler connection is needed for a smooth transition.
An auxiliary or temporary boiler must be installed during replacement so that the existing steam load of your facility’s system will be supported during construction. Albeit its temporary purpose, every single electrical and mechanical service must be routed in the right way around the interim boiler. These include fuel, steam, and feedwater—all of which must be provided according to the respective codes of each service.
How to prepare your temporary or auxiliary boiler for reliability and emergencies
To ensure that layup and service termination points are determined properly and the interim boiler connections are optimized for reliability, here are a few best practices that should be kept in mind:
1. Size up your temporary boiler connection according to the overall capacity
Before carrying out an installation process, it is best to take the idea of sizing a temporary connection to accommodate the load requirement for minimum operation. When taking details into account, work with a load profile of a year’s worth of data concerning steam use or metered data to set an optimum baseline. Once the necessary services are eliminated or downsized in an emergency by facility personnel, the maximum load for temporary boiler support is determined.
2. Take water connections into consideration
An efficient way to ensure that your temporary or auxiliary boiler remains functional in any type of emergency is to include a long-term water arrangement. This must contain provisions for various water sources. Different sources of water, such as soft water, city water, and feedwater are viable options to take into consideration when optimizing a plant and the auxiliary boiler to operate in unforeseen circumstances.
3. Establish backup fuel connections
Generally, every type of temporary or auxiliary boiler burns natural gas as a source of energy but keeps a secondary fuel line. The backup is essential for instances where the primary source fails.
In line with the preventive measures taken for water connections, fuel connections must also be prepared by establishing a gas connection that can be used in the same area as the boilers. As an additional safety precaution, you can add various sources of fuel oil in different parts of the facility so that your temporary boiler is backed up with additional sources of energy.
4. Ensure that emergency electricity is provided for
One pitfall that temporary or auxiliary boilers have is that they do not come with generators. With this, it is necessary to have a site or facility with stable and backup power in place.
Precision and accuracy are vital in setting up a backup emergency source for your boiler, as 400 amps at 480 volts are the required amount to generate 100,000 PPH of steam. An auxiliary or temporary boiler’s source of energy must be separated from the main boiler-plant motor control centre and should be reinforced by an emergency electrical system.
The process of installing a temporary or auxiliary boiler in lieu of an outdated main boiler due for replacement presents various challenges. One way to ensure that your temporary or auxiliary boilers work efficiently and reliably as possible is to prepare them for emergency situations.
If you’re looking for a temporary boiler for hire in London, get in touch with us to see how we can help!