Sidewalk Cleaning, Enviro Questions

[Chris Tharpe]

The photos below are of an office we did this weekend. 50k of sidewalks and 950 linear ft of walls. How would you handle washing near the lake? We followed the old saying don't get caught and used only hot water near this area but how would someone go about keeping water from entering the lake?


My father decided to help this weekend in exchange for a roof on his house. A pressure switch decided to fail, and the boiler ran constantly. This ended in a large boom (sounded like a pipe bomb went off) and parts flying everywhere. Monday we will have blow off valves on all burners to keep this from happening hopefully. BE CAREFUL, if someone was standing in front of that burner when she blew it is a large possibility they would have been killed. The burner is in several pieces now, the endcap is all mangled and the only thing that kept the burner from entering the glass building we were working on was a knee wall. Just something to think about in relation to Tom's thread yesterday.

 

[Chris Tharpe]

a few more before's and the pictures of the coil that blew

 

[Chris Tharpe]

Afters

 

[Chris Tharpe]

last of them. The photo of the snow wash on Saturday morning before we got started. Kinda funny that we had snow at all much less this early into winter

 

[bears]

my burner hasn't been kicking off like it should. There has been a few times that were scary I had nothing but steam coming out. You got very lucky that no one was hurt.

 

[Christopher]

Glad nobody was hurt when that thing went off.

Is that thing still under warranty?

 

[Jonathan Ellis]

A reclaim surface cleaner

 

[Vince Wood]

It's amazing on how much damage a $2 switch can do. I change my pressure switch out every 2 weeks regardless of how much I've been running the machine. It's cheap insurance. I'm glad no one got hurt. I was always curious though to see what happens when one malfuctions and you don't hit the on/off swsitch quick enough though.

 

[Chris Tharpe]

Thats about all i could think of in regards of reclaim. I looked at the late Tom Durbin's video and there was quite a bit of water not being picked up with the system being pictured. I feel like there has got to be a way to get all the water up at least so it is not running off. Ill revisit this idea just before christmas time and start purchasing parts to build my own or a pre-built one

 

[Chris Tharpe]

It's amazing on how much damage a $2 switch can do. I change my pressure switch out every 2 weeks regardless of how much I've been running the machine. It's cheap insurance. I'm glad no one got hurt. I was always curious though to see what happens when one malfuctions and you don't hit the on/off swsitch quick enough though.

we were about 300 ft away in each direction and would have never know anything was wrong except the kaboom. I should have had a burst disc in place and that would not have happened but you live and learn

 

[Chris Tharpe]

Glad nobody was hurt when that thing went off.

Is that thing still under warranty?

probably not gonna cover that type of damage. It may be fixable but I am not sure about that

 

[Scott Stone]

You can buy a replacement coil nd wrap. Take pictures of all the damage. It can be quite impressive. Didn't I tell you about mine in Ft. Worth? Glad no on was hurt.

 

[Clean County PW]

I had many times where the burner didnt shut off so the birst disc went. I buy a bunch of them every year just to cover in case this happens. There was a couple of times that I was the Thermostat operator when my guys were cleaning because the darn heat would not turn off.

I need to get some burner training.

 

[El Flojo]

That sucks Chris. Did you get to finish the job? hope all is good now. Guys we should all go check and see if all our machines are in working order. You can buy all these precautions for a few bucks and are easy to install. Had a burst disc go out when i first got into this bizz and flipped out, didnt know what was happening and folks called fire dept. and everyone freaked out.lol the worst thing is to call someones wife/mom and say ......... has passed wile working for me. (if it could be avoided do it.) its worth it

 

[The Cleaner]

Nice job Chris !!

 

[810f250]

Nice Job Chris, looks much better.

You asked about water recovery, the best suited tool I think would be a vacuum recovery surface cleaner, with respect to some of the videos on Tom D's website, I did not think the height was adjusted properly on the surface cleaners. Even if a little water got by while using a properly setup vac sc, i believe that no governing body would ridicule you of any wrong doing.

I am happy that no one was hurt Chris and no customer property damage.




Trying to understand the wiring of a burner,

Thinking out loud some scenarios guys/gals:

1) You release the trigger and the pressure switched failed (closed circuit), the thermostat (if working) should cut the burner off because the temp was getting to high past the setting, unless the setting is way pass normal or the inlet water was so cold the temp set could not be achieved but even if this was the case, when the temp is achieved it would then open the circuit to the fuel solenoid. Unless the thermostat failed too.

When you released the trigger and the thermostat (working) were closed, the pressure switch (working) should open anyway, breaking the circuit to the fuel solenoid?

2)If both the switches pressure and thermostat (working) closed circuit, possibly the fuel solenoid failed, stuck open and continuously provided fuel instead of sending fuel into bypass?

3)The unloader failed to unload the pump the pressure switch working properly would remain closed, the thermostat working properly remained closed because the inlet water was cold so it could never reach the set temp, but then should open when the temp is achieved unless the thermostat failed closed too.

Inputs?

 

[Scott Stone]

If the pressure switch fails, the high temp switch is not going to activate because no water is flowing over it. In this type of scenario the water is not a uniform temperature throughout the coil. I had the same thing happen about ten years ago and it happened in the pancake like it did for Chris. I am assuming from the. Location that is where the highest heat is in the coil.
BTW Kaboom does not do the explosion justice.

 

[Russ Spence]

NO, kaboom will never do that noise justice!

When we had that happen I thought someone had done a drive by at close range, I honestly thought I was dead, IT WAS 4AM TOO! LOL

 

[Chris Tharpe]

KABOOM was the only word I could think of at the time to describe that, however after much thought I felt like Bin Laden was out there a car bomb and decided to try and blow up the entire city block. It shook the ground, rattled the trailer, and even cracked the frame the coil was on. I took off running hoping that my dad was not near it when it popped. Nedless to say I ordered burst disc's for all machines today and well probably even to to a cheaper hose thats not made to withstand pressures above 3500k to use as a jumper next time just hopefully to allow the hose to blow instead of the burner. Much easier to replace a hose and fix the problem rather than not having the burner in service for a while. Just an idea

 

[810f250]

If the pressure switch fails, the high temp switch is not going to activate because no water is flowing over it. In this type of scenario the water is not a uniform temperature throughout the coil. I had the same thing happen about ten years ago and it happened in the pancake like it did for Chris. I am assuming from the. Location that is where the highest heat is in the coil.
BTW Kaboom does not do the explosion justice.

I taught the mechanism in the thermostat switch worked regardless if water flow across it or not.

What if the system did not have a trapped pressure unloader, could the pressure build inside the coil due to the super heated steam go backward through a flow type unloader and alleviate the potential problem? I am not sure of the internals of a flow type unloader but when the trigger is released it unloads the pressure in the hose and coil under normal operation.


Sure right kaboom is a highly under stated description

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