Parker Boiler’s New Vertical Water Wall

Everyone has their own set of thrills.  For instance, some guys get excited about cars; my wife tends to be enthusiastic when it comes to jewelry; my blogger is motivated by chocolate; and I have a thing for boilers.  So, imagine my reaction when I learned that Parker Boiler has a new process boiler under development.  While this sort of thing isn’t new to Parker – their engineers are constantly developing, reworking, and improving equipment and processes, and even though their Water Wall tubing design and the Low NOx Metal Fiber burner system is top notch, they’ve found yet another way to improve upon it.
 
Here are just a few advantages when choosing this model:

• Safety – Parker’s tube bundle is extremely flexible and provides a long-life with a 25-year warranty against thermal shock.
• Large Heating Surface – This provides increased efficiency, long boiler life, and reduces chances of scaling.
• Sealed Combustion – Reduces the heat loss and increases efficiency to 84%.
• Variable Speed Blower – which provides a wide turn-down ratio for production matching steam supply, saving on utility costs.
• Internal Accessibility -- Cabinet inspection panels are easily removed for service access to the burner, tubes, and steam storage drum.
• Heavy Insulated Cabinet – The cabinet is constructed to effectively reduce heat loss.

Plus, we get all the great Parker traits we have all grown to expect like 100PSI in 10 minutes and extra dry steam from the large horizontal steam drum.  Of course, this model will be manufactured in conformance with UL Standard 795 & ASME-CSD-1.  But to top it all off, this Parker Boiler from 9.6 H.P to 24 H.P will easily pass through a 35” door .......BAM!!!

TriState is a proud distributor for Parker Boiler equipment, and if you have questions about our Parker Boiler equipment, please contact us.

Top 4 Reasons Your Boiler Won’t Keep Up

Let’s keep this simple.  Here are four things to check if your boiler isn’t keeping up:

• Do you have a tubeless-type boiler with internal flews? Do you clean them yearly as required by the manufacturer?  If not, clean them (and be sure to put on your soot suit when you do).
• Check your water temperature.  If the temperature is too high, the boiler slows down significantly.  Keep the water around 180 degrees.
• Check your return tank for city make-up water.  Most tanks have a float valve to maintain the proper water level by adding city water to compensate for water loss.  If the tank is constantly being filled by city water, your boiler is trying to boil much colder water extending the boiling point and holding down operation pressure. (Plus your water bill is probably high too.)
• Makeup air is important for proper combustion, so make sure you have enough.  The rule to follow is 1 square inch per 1,000 BTU’s.

If the first four haven’t helped your boiler problem, then have it checked out by a qualified technician.  Be sure they check all the required settings like burner gas pressure, free air, and burner adjustment.  But 90% of the time, these four reasons apply.  So regularly check your boiler and increase production and improve energy efficiency.  If you have boiler issues that you simply cannot solve, feel free to contact us for additional support.

How Well Do You Treat Your Boiler?

I often interrogate dry cleaning and laundry operators about their boiler maintenance procedures, and I typically get interesting and troubling answers.  Here’s how it usually goes:

 

You have a blow down regimen – right?  Oh yeah, we blow it down at least once a week in the afternoon.

 

Do you treat your water?  Umm….no….it’s too expensive.

 

When’s the last time you cleaned your flues and burners?  I didn’t know you needed to do that.

 

So you get the idea.  Proper boiler maintenance is huge - it can save you LOTS of money and headaches.  How?  Water contains impurities that coat the water jacket or tubes in your boiler causing it to need more gas (higher utility bills) to boil the water in order to make steam.  Those impurities also coat the internal water and safety probes causing the pump to fail (think repair costs) and create problems like cutting off on low water safety because it can’t measure the water through continuity.  Properly maintaining your boiler, like blowing it down regularly, not only eliminates the problems I just mentioned but also the ones I haven’t even gotten to.

 

If you’ve been neglecting your boiler, here’s what I recommend:

 

1. Get a chemical company to analyze your water so you know what’s in it.  Using two companies is ideal so you can compare their findings and recommendations.

2. Based on the findings, you can then come up with an appropriate blow down regimen.  Follow it religiously.

3. Consult your owner’s manual for recommended flue and burner cleaning and follow it too!

 

So now your boiler is clean.  Your flues and burners are clean.  Your boiler is running efficiently, as it was designed to do, and the heat can penetrate the metal to get to the water without those impurities slowing the process, ultimately creating more steam at a LOWER utility cost.

 

Not only can you enjoy lower utility costs, you can also increase the life of your boiler.  We like Parker Boilers for their fast start ups, low cost of ownership, and ease of repair.  The average cost to install a boiler is anywhere from $2,800.00 to $4,000.00.  Add in freight in the rage of $700.00 to $3,000.00 depending on size. I haven’t even mentioned the cost of the equipment yet.  Taking all these things into account, doing things like treating your water doesn’t seem so expensive and properly blowing down doesn’t seem so taxing.