My old fire tube boiler sprung a leak mid-shift Tuesday

Was running a pressure test on a 30-year-old Cleaver-Brooks in a plant outside Toledo when a tube sheet weld let go. Had to emergency shutdown and drain the whole thing. Took me and my apprentice 4 hours to cut out the bad section and prep for re-welding. Anyone else ever deal with a sudden tube failure like that on an older unit?

2 comments

2 Comments

jade_lane191mo ago

Oh man, same thing happened to me last fall. What a mess.

irisw731mo ago

Hmm, I actually had a pretty decent experience with mine. Guess it depends on what you were trying to do with it. Mine held up fine through a few rainstorms and never gave me any trouble. Sorry yours was rough, but maybe it's just a luck of the draw thing.