Help needed - Firing up my grandads steam boiler

If your safety valve is working nothing can go wrong, if you're worried about that then don't use it.

Bob

Paul,

I hope that my point has been made.

Having spent a life time in engineering, have seen, thankfully from a distance, or learned of things that can go disastously wrong. I have been lucky, and my blunders , bad as some were, did not injure anyone or do irreparable damage.

The model that began this thread has obviously been well made, and probably will require a low pressure to set it in motion.

These threads are read by many, experienced, and otherwise, hence my repeated warnings, for the benefit of the inexperienced or overconfident.          I've met both over the years!.

I would be mortified if someone through inexperience or over confidence fired up a boiler and sustained injury because they had not hydraulically tested the boiler, and checked the safety valves, because they had not been warned of the possible consequences, of failing so to do.

I am not one who advocates banning pens in case someone stabs themselves, maybe dangerously, the reverse.

My colleague lost his finger ends because something happened which no one had thought possible, and so was not included in the risk assessment. It is always the one thing that you didn't think of that comes and bites you!.

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 18/09/2023 18:01:44

Paul makes some very balanced points.

My objection is that we are told to treat this boiler like unexploded ordnance. I base my personal risk assessment on historic data. The fact is I cannot recall a total instantaneous failure of a model boiler (I have been jn the game 55 years now, including full size steam excursions). The worst probable outcome is actually a major leak and anybody near gets out of the way. No life changing injuries, no deaths, minor scald possibly.

The one exception would be a device without a safety valve, for which I stated some concern and provided a workable suggestion for finding out and conducting a crude hydraulic test.

Bob, why on earth is lagging the pipes "a must"?

Get real please, gentlemen.

M Johnson

B.Tech (Mech.Eng), Retired C.Eng, F.I. Mech. E

I'm not a clever as you Martin, but surely the pipe from boiler to engine on a small pipe will help.

Bob

Bob,

Lagging the steam pipe won’t do any harm but it’s unlikely to provide much practical benefit either. You need a good thickness of lagging to make a significant difference to the heat flow, you can’t scale nature. To get a significant benefit the thickness of insulation required would be vastly disproportional to the pipe size. I imagine the objection to your comment was the inference lagging is compulsory, for this application it might be nice to wind some “string” round the pipes but it’s not going to make any noticeable difference to the performance or greatly increase the efficiency. It’s an optional nice to have, not a must.

Best regards,

Paul.

Paul beat me to it. There was a recent article on the maths of insulating small pipes by Mike Tilby in ME. It proves what Paul describes.

I hope in amongst all this chatter the OP has had a great time steaming Grandad's handiwork.

Martin

Edited By Martin Johnson 1 on 22/09/2023 13:03:57