Boiler Tube Cleaning

There are two types of tubular boilers - firetube and watertube. In the watertube boiler, water is carried in
the tubes and heated to the point that it becomes high pressure steam. In most areas, watertube boiler
plants must have licensed stationary engineers on hand at all times and maintenance is usually
performed by in-house personnel.
In the firetube boiler, water surrounds the tubes and hot gasses travel through the tubes. This results in
soot and scale deposits accumulating within the tubes. No matter what fuel is used (gas, oil, coal or
wood) the tubes need to be cleaned. If the tubes are not cleaned regularly, boiler efficiency is sacrificed
and fuel is wasted. Soot actually has five times the insulating capacity of asbestos. For example, 1/8 inch
of soot can accumulate in just two weeks resulting in a heat loss of 47% and an increase in fuel
consumption of 8 %. As the layer of soot builds up, the stack temperature rises. For every 40oF rise in
stack temperature, boiler efficiency is reduced by 1%. That's a pretty good argument for regular tube
cleaning.
Firetube boilers are far and away the most numerous of the tubular boilers in use in larger commercial
facilities. They are commonly found in schools, hospitals, apartment buildings, office buildings, shopping
centers, hotels, factories, military bases and some ships.

Some Firetube Cleaning History

Over the years, several methods have been developed for cleaning boiler firetubes. Twenty-plus years
ago, one popular method of keeping tubes clean was the use of sootblowers. Sootblowers consisted of
steel tubes fitted with blowing nozzles that were mounted on the tube sheet of the boiler in such a way
that the nozzles could be maneuvered to blow steam or air through each tube. Soot blowing was
performed at scheduled intervals in the hopes that the tubes would be kept clean. This practice was
widely accepted in the days when environmental concerns were not as important as they are today. With
sootblowers, the soot was simply blown out through the smoke stack and into the atmosphere - a practice
that is frowned upon today. Today, sootblowers are used mainly in large power utility boilers where the
smoke stacks are equipped with scrubbers and other environmental devices.
Another tube cleaning method practiced by some boiler tube technicians was washing out the tubes using
a fire hose. One can imagine the mess this left behind. Yes, the tubes were cleaned but the boiler room
was left with a layer of black mud on the floor. It took longer to clean the floor than the tubes. In addition,
this was often done on boilers firing Bunker C #6 oil with a high sulfur content which presented a safety
issue - sulfur mixed with water creates an acid.
Another tube cleaning device that has come and gone is a machine that is hung from a system or racks
that could be remotely guided to the opening of each tube one-by-one. Once positioned, the tube cleaning
machine mechanically drove a cleaning brush down the tube and back using a cable. It was a great idea
but it took a great deal of time to assemble and disassemble the racks on each boiler.
In most cases, tube cleaning was strictly a manual operation requiring a great deal of time, labor, mess
and inconvenience. Brushes fastened to long, heavy metal rods were manually pushed and pulled

through the soot laden boiler tubes, resulting in clouds of soot filling the air and settling on every surface
in the room. The backbreaking effort went on for hours followed by the immense task of individually
vacuuming each tube and clean up of the boiler room. Eventually, the issue of worker health was raised
with the discovery of Vanadium Poisoning in the 1970s. Vanadium Poisoning is an influenza like illness
that can have permanent effects. Toxic effects were reported from breathing air containing as little as 5
mg. per cubic meter. No wonder nobody wanted to clean firetube boilers!
Unfortunately, there are still many operators out there who think this is still the only way to do the job.