Eric Johnson (00:00)
Welcome back to Boiler Wild. My name is Eric Johnson. I am your host. It is the one and only me. And I am here with a interesting, good episode for you today about why I think automatic bottom blow off valves and systems should be more popular in the United States. I made a post about this on LinkedIn about a week ago and it had uh
a lot of impressions and a lot of people comment on it, which was very interesting. Very, very opinionated people. But I also wanted to talk about uh what I think on the subject and uh just some other thoughts around it. And I think I would also love I don't think I I know I would love to hear your thoughts as well. If you wanna post your thoughts, you can publicly comment, I believe, but
If you want to privately send me something, you can email me eric dot johnson at boilearn.com or DM me on LinkedIn. Both of those are fine. If you're not on LinkedIn, uh, you should be on LinkedIn. Even though the impressions suck, even though LinkedIn is screwing things around, there's still some great people on LinkedIn that I've met only virtually. Uh, there's just a guy in uh Scotland that I just started talking with. And it's it's very interesting to talk to people.
from different countries, especially cross the pond, and to hear what is normal for them, what the boiler world is like for them, to hear what their laws are like. As I have no idea what's going on outside the United States. I'm not uh one, I haven't been outside of the United States other than Canada, which really doesn't count. And even if I did, I wouldn't know anything about the boiler laws unless I visited somebody.
like a boiler contractor and follow them around, which I would love to do, but right now I couldn't afford that because they would probably not be paying me. So I can't afford a five to ten thousand dollar uh work vacation right now to go follow a contractor for two weeks around in Europe and see how they work. But that is something on my list that I would love to do. But why automatic bottom blowdown systems should be a thing? I think they should be a thing.
And from my understanding of ASME boiling pressure vessel code, section one, section four, it is not illegal. I have seen in the United States. And also I will tell you about why it is also not illegal. Some s uh some people commented that it's not common in North America and it's not common basically 'cause people aren't used to it, companies aren't used to it, it's not something they do, but
The boiler market in North America, I think, has stagnated. I know companies love to say they innovate and they come out with this cool product or that cool product, but I don't think r anybody's really pushing the market. I think a lot of customers don't know what they're buying. And also a lot of boiler manufacturers or controls manufacturers just keep running the same play.
Over and over and over again and I wonder what we can do differently and sometimes looking at what the rest of the world does can help shape that opinion, help form that opinion. That doesn't mean just because somebody else does it does means it right. You know, maybe America does boilers better than Europe or some other part of the world. But looking at data from other parts of the world I think is interesting.
And it's essentially an experiment that we can see and what is happening, what are the consequences of that, and that can help shape the way forward in America versus just saying, well, this is how we should go and this is what it should be and without any data. why do I think automatic bottom blowdown systems? So one, they're not illegal in America. I just wanna point that out.
It may be illegal in your jurisdiction or your jurisdiction may frown upon it or your boiler inspectors may not allow it without any
reason why other than their opinion. But
It is not illegal according to the ASME boiler and pressure vessel code. And that's my understanding. If that is wrong, please call me out. Tell me I'm dumb and I am not well read. But that is my understanding and from my reading of it. But I did not go review the entire boiler and pressure vessel code, section one, section four before this episode. But I have looked into it in the past and also I will say it's not illegal because
there are boilers out there in America. I've seen a a Cleaver Brooks fire tube boiler with an automatic blowdown system on it. It was not a cleaver supplied automatic blowdown system. The customer made it themselves. So and the jurisdiction allowed it. However, Miura boilers, and I don't want to say all Miura, I'm not familiar enough with Miura to call off model numbers off the top of my head, but they're traditional boiler that is the rectangle.
Boiler encasement. I I don't know the on-demand boiler. I know they make a a uh a less popular other style of boiler, but their flagship boiler, whatever model that is, it has an automatic bottom blowdown. And vapor power circulatic boilers have automatic bottom blowdowns on their drum. And they're all set. It's it's set on a timer. I'm very familiar with the vapor power automatic bottom blowdowns. I worked with tons of vapor.
Circulatics very much uh expert on it. I too for lack of better word. But if you don't know a vapor power circulatic is a coil type boiler, so it has a pump on it and it pumps water through these coils that are heated and then the water goes through the coils are like say two inches or two and a half inches, and then that gets
piped into a drum and when you go into a drum that is now thirty inches wide, that expansion of area allows that pressurized water to go into the drum and then since the pressure drops that water will then flash the steam. So it becomes a hot water boiler with a remote steam drum. And it is essentially they call it a steam generator. But it is a very different style of boiler than
a traditional fire tube boiler or a water tube boiler. So companies in the United States are already doing it. Vapor power circulatics have automatic bottom blowdown on their steam drums. And if you go low on the on the water on your steam drum, the pump will stop and the boiler will shut off.
you can't dump all the coils on the boiler. So you're not without opening up the boiler for maintenance and even then all the coils wouldn't be empty, you would just lose flow. But the boiler was shut off, so you're on a vapor powered circulatic, you're looking at a very different cooling and heating situation than a fire tube boiler. A fire tube boiler traditionally
a Scotch Marine boiler that isn't built in a perfect mirror of itself. So the Morrison tube is offset or the fire tube is offset, it will heat up differently in different areas and you have to heat it up slowly. And water tube boilers are a little bit the same way, but they are a little bit less
uh water tube boilers can move around a little bit more and are designed to move around a little bit more. But fire tube boilers if you heat up and cool down quickly, the tubes will tend to leak and you'll have shrinkage and cracks and stuff. And I saw some people commenting on my the LinkedIn. Once again, there's no right or wrong answer. Everybody can have their opinion. I am just saying my opinion and I love to hear anybody else's opinions and I I think a good discussion
Me ahead around this, but some other people said hey, you what if a fire tube boiler the automatic bottom blowdowns stick open and you dump the whole boiler? While that is possible, I think it can be mitigated, but it's also uh there's two things I think uh why that may not be as big of a concern, and what is more likely the automatic bottom blowdown valve sticking open.
or the customer not blowing down the boiler. So I'll get into that, but I just wanna talk about from and once again I don't know a hundred percent of what the laws are in Europe, but from the discussion on this LinkedIn post, the people in Europe and in other countries, I think there was a guy from Brazil said automatic bottom blowdown valves are normal and self checking water level controls are normal. So Europe has a little bit different
water level controls than the United States and I don't know if that's good or bad, but I believe that if Europe can have automatic bottom blowdown valves, why not the United States? And maybe we have to take a different look at what our water level controls are and maybe mandate one float, one probe, and maybe a third one. And maybe mandate in a certain situation, hey, if you have automatic
bottom blowdown valves, you have to have these extra safeties or this extra thing because on an automatic boiler we have to ensure that it keeps water in it. But I I I think there would be a good case for US boiler manufacturers to go look at what Europe is doing. Go look at even even in the United States, I know Spirex Sarco in Gestra
I was uh I believe a division of Spirex Sarco They make water level controls, but they are it's a European company, Gestra, and but they they're they have brought their controls to the United States, but they're not as popular as a McDonnell Miller water level control and uh the float controls that McDonnell Miller makes. But I don't know if float controls are better than probe controls. I've talked to some European people and they say that probe controls are better than float controls.
I don't know what's right, I don't know what's wrong, and I don't know if there's data on that. You can fool a probe control pretty easily, but you can also fool a float control pretty easily if the float sticks. So I don't know what is right or what is wrong, but I think a good data point is that Europe and the rest of the world already has automatic bottom blowdown valves. I don't know how prevalent they are, but they are prevalent enough that people say, well, they are normal. And ASME doesn't say that they're not allowed.
So it's like, well, why don't we look into it and say, Okay, why are we not doing this in America? And I will get into this about the whole why is customers don't know what they don't know. And when you come in and and I'm talking about boilers that are anywhere from fifty horsepower to five hundred, maybe eight hundred horsepower.
even a thousand horsepower. Uh so that's like the boilers I'm talking about. I'm not talking about giant utility boilers that require lots of maintenance staff and everybody to watch it full time. But even other boilers in other jurisdictions that are smaller require boiler operators and that's totally fine. But when a customer that is in a jurisdiction that can buy a two hundred horsepower boiler that does not have a operator requirement, when they buy the boiler
The boiler sales company goes, you're buying an automatic boiler and you have all these automatic burner controls on it, and you have all this automatic flame safeguard systems on it, and all this automatic stuff, and the boiler runs without you and do does all the stuff. And the customer, whether you tell or not, and I don't think companies really have a good idea of how to educate end users and customers.
And just saying, hey, everything's in the manual or well, you just need to read the manual or you just need to figure it out or try harder. That it doesn't work. Even if it should work, it doesn't work because a lot of I think a lot of companies don't know what good is or what they should be doing. And when you know I've experienced this myself is when I've watched customers say, Well, we bought an automatic boiler, why?
Do we have to check on this boiler every single day? Why do we have to do water treatment? We thought we bought an automatic boiler. We thought we bought the automatic surface blowdown system. Why are we manually checking it? So there's some communication issues that need to be worked out in the sales process and in the startup and training process of what does an automatic boiler actually mean? Because
If a customer doesn't understand it, they don't know what they don't know and they're not gonna understand it until they do understand it. So you have to change the way you're talking about it. But for the the customers that are buying an automatic boiler, they do not have a full time operator and they may or may not do water treatment. They may hire somebody to do water treatment, say like once a month. I'm just thinking about like what is
What is more reasonable? That we expect a company or humans to try harder to operate the boiler correctly, to read the manual more, or do we expect humans to do what humans do and that we should put as many engineering controls on the boiler as possible in order to ensure that the boiler
The and specifically the steam boiler is operating safely. And I believe the second part of it, and I think a automatic bottom blowdown system could complement a automatic surface blowdown system. And I think the benefits would outweigh the risk. And I think that you know there's some people that come in on LinkedIn post and they're a little bit older.
There's there's no right or wrong opinion, but they're saying, Well, how hard is it to blow down a boiler or it doesn't take that long or they just need to remember to do it. And yes, I I agree with all that. In a perfect world, customers would blow down their high pressure steam boilers every day or as needed and they would test the low water cutoffs, but that is not happening. So instead of just expecting it to happen and instead of
telling customers to just try harder or saying that people are dumb or all this stuff. How do we engineer the package system? How do we change the packaged automatic boiler system in order to take care of itself more rather than allowing customers to just fail at it? And I know this will add cost. I know this will add complexity, and I understand and some other people mentioned this add adding complexion
To a boiler system is not always correct. More is not always better. However, I I think the USA way of the manual blowdown system is archaic and I think there's a lot of room for improvement. And I kind of relate this to the hierarchy of controls. So OSHA has this thing. If you've ever done some safety training, you may be familiar with the hierarchy of controls.
And essentially it's there's five levels of the hierarchy of control of identifying hazards. And instead of OSHA going, Well, people just need to be safer and companies saying, Well, people should just know better than to not stick their hands in rotating equipment or people should just know better to not walk near a ledge because there's no railing.
you know, they're gonna fall. Like if people were falling off ledges the normal railing and guarding systems didn't used to be a thing that's very, very new in the past hundred, hundred and twenty years. And instead of companies saying, Well, people just need to try harder, you need to be better, the part of hazard and safety, the the bottom of the hierarchy of controls is PPE.
Protect the worker with personal protective equipment. That's the bottom. And there are four levels above that. And those four levels come first before the PPE. So let me go through these and then let me relate it to the automatic bottom blow off valves. So one is elimination. Physically remove the hazard. That is the first hierarchy of control. So physically remove the hazard. So with the
Automatic bottom blowdown systems. I have seen well with manual bottom blowdown systems, I've seen workers get burned. I've seen workers have leaks on the system from opening the valves. I've seen piping come apart on the bottom blowdown system. So it is it is hazardous, and yes, you should inspect it. Yes, you should wear PPE, but there is a hazard there to workers that
I think could be controlled better with a automatic bottom blow off valve system. And do we as a boiler industry could we put our minds together and come up with an engineering system or a system that eliminates the the hazard of having workers
open and close valves on the bottom of a pressure vessel every single day. And also it would eliminate the hazard of not opening and closing those valves to the actual pressure vessel. And I I mean the hazard of when you don't blow down a boiler, you have sediment in the bottom of the boiler develop. You also have sediment in the low water cutoff bowls and everything develop. So what is an automatic system look like
that would at the very least be blowing out that sediment by itself when humans are not around to do it. So that's that that is my thinking. I want to be clear that you can't eliminate the bottom blow off valves.
So that is a normal part of boiler systems and eliminating them would allow the
material from the water to build up in the system and build up in the pressure vessel. So you can't eliminate it, but I think you can eliminate the actual hazard of it. So we can't get rid of bottom blow off systems, but the hazard around it and the humans operating the systems, I think we can reduce or remove the human component and bring them in line more with the automatic boiler operation. The substitution replaced the hazard
This would once again go along with automatic bottom blowdown valves. You can have some power open, spring closed valves, I think. So they would fail in the closed position, just like gas block valves. So if the valve lost power when it was opening, it would spring shut. You can make the valves move slowly so that
They would slowly open and then people say, Well, what if the boiler blows down and people around it? Well, you could have the boiler sound an alarm but ten seconds before it blows down so that people can make sure that they're out of the way of the piping system to make sure that everything is safe. You can also maybe have a automatic bottom blowdown system, and I think this would defeat
The point of an automatic bottom bones blow-on system, but you can make an automatic system that is manually operated. So you can have automatic valves and they would be manually opened via push buttons from a safe operator station. So the operator would be able to stand, say, in front of the control panel, open the valves, the valves on the bottom of the boiler would open and the operator would verify that they opened, that the water level dropped, and
But they would not be exposed to the hazard of one, having to open the valves. Sometimes the valves are hard to open and that doing that every day, bending down under the boiler, sometimes they're not in the most convenient spots, bending down under the boiler, that can be a hazard to workers and they can get injured, they can back injuries, hand injuries. But it's also the the workers not being around the valves just in case.
when the valves open, the blowdown piping leaks, you can have sprays, you can have steam come out, the water's gonna flash the steam, you know, piping break apart. There's all these things that can happen and you being around that can burn you. I don't know how often that happens. I don't have any statistics on how often somebody blows down a boiler and they get hurt, but every manufacturer's manuals, you know, there's always a list of j of
PPE do this before it. And I also know and I have seen maintenance workers that are scared of the boiler and they're scared of blowing down a boiler, so they end up not doing it. So would a worker who is scared of blowing down the boiler and not do it, would they be less scared of it if they could push a button and that button could operate a automatic blowdown sequence or they could push the button and make sure that the
only when they're holding that button does that valve open on the bottom blowdown. It blows it out. And then when they release the button, the valve would close. That would allow that'd be an engineered system that would allow us to remove hazards from the worker that is going to be more scared of a boiler than a typical boiler operator. And I don't want to say, well, we just need to train people more. W well we need to do this. Well we need to do that.
That is not happening, and until jurisdictions require more training, it's not going to happen across the level. So once again, you go back to the elimination and substitution of the hazards. And then the third of the hierarchy controls is engineering controls. And once again to be clear, the hierarchy of controls, you don't really choose one level, it's typically a mixture of all the levels. And
This mixture, the first three is a mixture of the an automatic bottom blowdown system. Engineering controls, isolate people from the hazard. And that would be the automatic bottom blowdown system. You could have alarms, audible and visual alarms that go off before the bottom blowdown valves open. You could have the automatic manual operator stations where a operator would or a maintenance person or whoever a person would have to physically push a button and
In order for the boiler to blow down, but they would not be around the valve. They would be in a safe location just in case anything happened. But they would be there to shut down the boiler or to close a bottom a manual bottom blowdown valve if something did leak or something like that happened. And I I think a version of that or some version of that is way safer and way more reliable than just
Once again, telling people that they need more training or telling people or telling customers, telling companies that, well, these automatic boiler plants, they run by themselves, but you actually really need somebody trained on all this and they need to be an expert and kind of understand water treatment and they need to not be scared of the boilers and they need to understand why blowing down the boiler.
Is so important and you know, adding salt to the water softener. There's all this stuff that's there's still this manual control, but it seems to be lost in the sales process when people are buying these automatic boiler plants. Cause you you have all these automatic boilers and then you have you buy a master boiler plant control, and then customers are under the impression that that this boiler plant runs by itself, and that is not true. Yes, it is automatic in the sense you don't have to have a fireman.
Or an operator sitting there and manually moving the feed water valves, manually moving the firing rate controls, manually adjusting the steam pressure. That is the automatic of it. But when customers hear automatic, they hear, Oh, we don't need anybody to run this. Everything works and we checked and bought all these options. And now we're we're good to go. We don't have to have anybody in this. And
While that would still be
There would still be a part of that, a human element to it. I think the the benefits of an automatic system of the elimination, substitution, and controls of the hierarchy of controls, the automatic bottom blow off system would prevent boilers from building up with mud and scale, or help prevent them from building up with mud and scale on the bottom if they are getting blow down once a day or once a shift. And I don't know how this would work.
because you would have an issue if you had a secondary low water cutoff on a water level column. But maybe we could have automatic bottom blowdown valves on the water columns of the boiler. And that wouldn't work because the on a high pressure boiler the
Secondary low water cutoff has to be a manual reset. So if you had an automatic blowdown valve on that, it would blow it down and then the boiler would need a manual reset. But what if we had an automatic blowdown valve or even a automatic manually operated valve where you just push a button, the valve opens, the operator ensures that the the boiler fails and then then they push a reset. Like there's
There I think there's some version that could work or make operators more feel more safe and remove people from standing right next to the boiler. And and by right next to the boiler, I mean they're not standing at the boiler, they may be standing ten to thirty feet away, but they're still in visual line of sight of the boiler, just like a automatic reset is for the burner control. You have to be in visual line of sight of the boiler.
I I think some version of that can be implemented and yes, it's gonna r add complexity and yes, it's going to add cost to the boiler. But I think companies would pay for that when you properly sell it and properly educate companies of hey, we're removing the burn risk or reducing burn risk. We're removing manual fatigue risks. Like a a lot of larger companies would pay for that. And I also think there's also a
angle maybe I'm thinking too much, but the insurance companies. What if what if in North America we standardized on a b automatic bottom control system and it became just as standard as a flame gate safeguard system. And I believe Auto Flame already has it built in. I don't know a ton about Auto Flame and how all their features work and everything. I'm I'm just surface level familiar with Auto Flame. I'm not
in depth familiar with auto flame and they uh autoflame is from Britain so they they would obviously be familiar with automatic bottom blowdown systems but a automatic bottom blow-down system that is built right into your parallel positioning system your flame safeguard system whatever burner control system so that it's not this off the shelf custom and it's different on every single boiler
It would be just as normal as buying a parallel positioning system. yeah, let's tack on the automatic bottom blow off system. And then here are the va the normal valves we use. So we're not re-engineering valves. We're not allowing uh boiler manufacturers or customers to try to figure out, oh, these are the valves we use and these are the valves we don't use, like what what is appropriate, what is not, it it just becomes uh like a standard package, just like a parallel positioning system does.
And insurance companies can then look at that and say, if you don't have a boiler operator, we are going to mandate that you have this automatic bottom blow-off system or something that is going to help prevent the boiler from filling up a scale, from filling up with mud, and to check the low water controls. And even if we're only checking the primary low water cutoff, what if the primary low water cutoff
And water column drained itself once a day. That would prevent mud getting built up in the bowl. That would prevent the the scale around it. And that would pr make sure that the float or the probe works. And there's some version out there. Once again, I'm not a professional engineer. I haven't thought this all the way through, but there's some version out there of a control system that would be packaged that would be safer, I believe.
than just saying, well, we just need to have humans try harder to blow down the primary low water cutoff. And we need to make sure that humans check that the primary low water cutoff works. Yes, that is all great. Once again in a perfect world, that is like saying in the hierarchy of controls that, well, we just need humans to just not stick their fingers in rotating equipment. If you have rotating equipment, you are going to either eliminate the equipment, so you're gonna
Say hey, we don't need that equipment anymore. You're gonna replace the hazard. Maybe you can do the job with a different equipment that's not rotating. You'd have engineering controls, which would isolate people from the hazard. So that would be the guards. That would be hey, we're gonna put this equipment in a room where the workers don't normally go. There's tons of engineering controls, and then you have the administrative controls, which is the way people work. And you would also bake this in with the boilers, but for rotating equipment.
You would have standardized uh programs about how you would work around the equipment, standardized worker training and all that stuff. But administrative controls and PP PPE are the two bottom rungs of the hierarchy and controls. And they're the two bottom ones because that involves the most human responsibility and human work. And while
Humans still have to be responsible for the equipment at the end of the day. You're never going to remove that responsibility. Having to rely on humans and say, well, the humans just need to try harder when you don't look at the other three, the elimination, substitution, and engineering controls, especially the engineering controls. Those other three, some form of those three can be applied to boilers in America and with bottom blow-off systems.
And with self-checking water level controls. I think that just saying that, well, this is the North American boiler market and people just need to try harder, I think that is very old thinking, and there's a lot of room for improvement. And there's a lot of room for somebody new to come out and say, Hey, this is what a true automatic bot boiler system is. And while it may still require somebody to be there,
We have removed the amount of work that somebody has to do. They no longer have to crank open a valve that is 10 turns all the way open for to blow down the boiler. All they have to do is hold this button for 10 seconds and the valve will automatically cycle. And this removes them from the hazard. This allows them to safely observe the boiler from a distance. This allows people that are less likely to be comfortable around a high-pressure steam boiler to
safely blow it down without essentially forcing them to well you gotta get next to the boiler and blow it down do all stuff. And once again, I will hear people and I've heard people when I've said these things. Well people just need to be more trained. They need to be more comfortable. Once again, yes, I understand that and that's a perfect world, but what can we do as a boiler industry to make people more comfortable around boilers, to remove more work and essentially make it more automatic.
In the way that the boiler runs and the way that the boiler checks its water level. I think water level controls in America are ancient. The the whole the the fact that a boiler can't automatically check that it has water in it other than a just a single pole, single throw switch.
of hey, is this switch closed? Is this is this switch open? That's that seems crazy to me.
having some form of self-checking. And once again, there's there's other water level systems that self-check. And yes, it adds it adds cost to the boiler. And not everybody's gonna want to pay for that cost. But when when we get those things out of the specialized control systems, specialized boiler operating systems, we're we're we're special engineering, special this, special that, and we make it more standard practices
And or insurance companies go, hey, this is what we want to see on these automatic boilers because you don't have operators. Like I I think there is a route and there's a way to educate companies about why this little extra cost can help prevent a huge capital expenditure of, hey, you filled your boiler with scale because you didn't blow it down, or hey, you melted your boiler because you never blew down your primary low bar cutoff and it didn't self check itself and
Like there's there's so many things that we rely on a boiler operation and I think looking at every part of the boiler operation and going, can we engineer a way around this that is gonna be more safe for the boiler? So that boiler can self check itself and self mean more self operate instead of saying, Well, we just need more humans to try harder or we need more jurisdictions to pass boiler
Laws that mandate people sit in front of a boiler. That's probably not going to happen. And I am going to always advocate for the solution that is most likely to happen. Once again, in a perfect world, I would love everybody to just sit in front of a boiler, just like we used to, and talk about the good old days and have boiler operators that are highly trained and know what they're doing and experts and everything. But that is not the way of life. That is not.
where we are in 2026 and I believe there is a a solution out there. So if anybody is an engineer or works for a manufacturer or has some thoughts on this, I would love to hear it. You can email me, eric.johnson at boilearn.com Or if you know of any automatic self checking water systems, water controls out there, or you've seen a boiler installation that has something like that I talked about in this episode, I would love to hear it. I would love to see pictures.
And just kind of how it works. I'm always open to learning and having other people explain their opinions to me on why or why something shouldn't be. But I believe the American market for boiler systems has stagnated and there is a lot of opportunity for improvement that would overall make the boiler room safer. So I appreciate you all for listening. I hope you had some insights on this.
I hope that you may be able to think about what an automatic bottom blow off system would look like on a boiler and also understand that the world rest of the world is doing it and some boiler manufacturers in the United States are also doing it like Vapor and Miura. And maybe we should make it more standardized. So I appreciate you all listening. If you haven't already, rate the podcast five stars and stay wild.
