Advice for Documenting Steam Vault

[IanVG]

Warning this is a *steamy* post.

I am going to be site-visiting some steam vaults in the near future with a steam-shop crew. My goal is to get dimensions and instances of pipes, valves and pumps within these closed spaces. In the older steam vaults (~100 years old), there are a lot of leaks, so it's really steamy. We'll have a portable fan pumping outside air into the vault so that will help. I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for techniques or tools that would me to document the inside of the vault as quickly as possible considering the conditions. Thank you in advance!

Note: some of these spaces are reallllly small, so I'll hardly have any moving room inside them.

 

[HVAC-Novice]

Not sure if it works in tiny rooms, but those laser scanners that generate a point cloud would be the the fastest and most accurate. ideally you can find multiple spots for readings.
they typically are used for "normal" sized buildings and are on tri-pods. but maybe they have special confined spaces models.

but they give you a 3D model in points and also pictures and you can measure all kind of things on in ReCAP or other software.

 

[nuuvox000]

Be careful with those leaks. I'm not a steam expert but I took a course from someone who is a steam expert and he said that sometimes the steam is invisible and could cut you in half as you walk by.

 

[BronYrAur]

Be sure to follow confined space protocols!!!! OSHA fined can be very large for violations.

 

[HVAC-Novice]

Steam always is invisible to the human eye. What you "see" and looks like fog are liquid water droplets. One property of steam is "quality", which determines the % of actual steam vs. liquid water. Once steam with quality of 1 enters a colder space, it starts condensing and part becomes liquid (quality below 1). those liquid droplets are what you see. The steam around it is still invisible. In the pipe, or machinery, quality always is supposed to be 1 since water droplets can damage turbines etc. So if you climb into a properly operating steam turbine, you won't "see" steam

When you breathe, you exhale water vapor (steam). In summer it is not visible since there is no condensation. In winter, you see the water droplets since you have condensation.