Boiler Gut Rehabilitation Success? 2

[MechItHappen]

Does anyone have any success rebuilding the insides of an older boiler? New tubes and tubesheets would be installed and followed up with a hydrostatic test, but I'm skeptical that that 30 year old boiler with new controls on it will continue to break down.

 

[Duwe6]

First, get an assessment of the Steam Drum & the Mud Drum. If they are OK, a retubing will give you a new boiler. The first thing to go is the tubes. The second thing to go is the tubes, and the 3rd and the 4th. About the fifth thing to go is the controls. IF the soot-blowers have not been dripping on the Mud Drum [external corrosion, cuts a groove], and IF there have been no loooong spells with very bad water chemistry, the Mud Drum and Steam Drum are essentially 'immortal'.

FYI, this fact was so little-known that when the EPA wrote the pollution control laws, they grandfathered in all the old coal-burning power plants. And with some new tubes every 2 or 3 decades, and fresh/refurbished valves & controls, these plants can run well into the next century! [laws made by idiots non-engineers, without any input from engineers]

 

[racookpe1978]

I have been on the turbine upgrade side of that process on a few power plants my dad built as a structural engineer. Inserting new turbine technology (Siemens new blades and rotor inside a Westinghouse old turbine HP and Lp casing, for example) can add another 25- 85 Megawatts to the original power plant rating.

 

[GenB]

How big a boiler?

 

[MechItHappen]

It's only a 150 hp boiler.

 

[chicopee]

So it appears to be a firetube boiler and if so it would be cheaper to buy a replacement in light of the fact that you want to replace the tube sheets. If you were to replace only the tubes I would say recondition it, however, replacing the tube sheets will be extremely expensive and will require all sorts of control.