Boilers need a steady supply of water, and the water needs to be reasonably pure. But how pure?In the heated boiler, the water’s dissolved minerals become concentrated. That’s why regular blowdown is critical. The valve is opened to drain sediment out of the pressure vessel. Then the boiler is topped up with fresh water, diluting … Read more
When you or someone on your site sprays a coating containing zinc near your heater, you need to take precautions for yourself and your equipment. Overspray that gets into the heater’s air outlet will cause serious and expensive damage. The problem starts when you shut off the heater and detach the ductwork from its air … Read more
Three phase motors are used in many industrial applications. They are simple in design and have a high starting torque. Compared to single phase motors of similar power rating, they are also compact and long lasting. However, Connecting a three phase motor to its power supply is not trivial. In the field, heaters and boilers … Read more
What if you start up your heater and you see this happening: The fuel pump is sucking fuel from the line, instead of pumping it from the tank. You smell smoke or see smoke going into the burner housing (the sign that the burner is drawing combustion air out of the stack and into the … Read more
In 2008 a project manager at a major energy company came to us with an interesting request. The manager was responsible for overseeing a quarter of one of the large processing facilities located in the boreal region north of Fort McMurray, Alberta. A challenging problem On his section stood an array of 200 valves through … Read more
Some projects seem fraught with bad luck. In this case, the client was constructing three oil storage tanks for a major energy company. The project ran for five months over the winter of 2014-2015. Desert Air was providing 32 kJ (30M BTUs) across seven heaters, maintenance for five other heaters owned by the client, and … Read more