When I use water for my iron I am supposed to use Distlied water…
I supose in Coal Country where the water was hard Steam Engines had to be overhauled thru quite expensive process of cleaning out the pipes…
I saw some pictures of the inside of an old engine and it was just caked inside.
This was an horrendous problem with steam engines on the prairies where the mineral content of water is extemely high (alkaline) not only did steam engines have massive buildups so did water pipes and hot water heaters,as a child I remember the kettle on the coal stove bubbling away and my Mother put a marble inside to collect the deposit, within a year the marble was bigger than a grapefruit and we couldn’t get it out of the kettle, so imagine the steam locomotive with the vast amounts of water they used, it was a constant battle to keep them clean.
Early on, nobody knew, or they saw no problem. Eventually, the water was treated so that it was close to neutral. In rare cases, it would be brought in by tank cars, but usually the addition of chemicals to on-sight water fixed the problems sufficiently.
it’s the same problem that affects your hot water heater in your home (it really is just a steam boiler on lower heat). bad water in = bad mineral buildup = reduced performance.
Early on companies didn’t think about this, as steam engines were replaced on a very short cycle as new models appeared. but later on, they realized the problem with dirty water and most attempted to rectify it with cleaner water supplies.
if you use well water in youre steamer wheather its rail or farm quit it now. i work at western minnesota steam threshers reunion in rollag minn, and we wound up having to replace the boiler on oure minniature train due to well water. all the other steamers rail and farm have used lake water on the showgrounds for years and the boilers look good with occasional treatments.
have a happy and safe steam season to all fellow steam entuseasts big boy
Water treatment of natural water was one on the big, hidden costs of the Steam era.
heard about “hard water”…but never realy understood it…interesting
That is how and why NALCo chemicals and water treatment in general got started.
Do bear in mind that not all natural water is bad if not treated. You just have to test it–it might be inpecable, it might cause your boiler to blow.
We use water from the well … hard water …we use a whole house filter to fill the boiler and tender … will add a little water from the well fed water tower to the existing fileterd water in the tender on special occasions for photos and the historic effect …
Also … if the propane is kept hot with a blue flame the soot doesn’t build up inside the boier tubes. …
Grand Scale Steamer
If I’m not mistaken, didn’t this problem contribute to the UP 844 problem that sidelined it for awhile?
I beleive the technical term for this low tech problem is “boiler scale”. Someone correct me but i believe one of the reasons for blowing down the boiler every morning was to remove any build up of sludge some of which is the result of hard water.
The problem isn’t really the pipes, which usually have mineral-free steam, nor the tubes and flues, which are replaced every few years anyway, but rather the sheets of the boiler, which you want to last for a long time.
The discussion here has been about scale build-up in water turbes. Did deposits build up in the fire tubes from the burning of coal or oil?
IIRC the problem was not scale but corrosion from the oxygen content of most city water supplies. The added chemical treatments and boiler blowdowns did a fairly good job of controlling boiler scale.
dd
Most every fireman had access to a bucket of sand that periodically would be drawn into the firebox using the draft of the fire. Not only did that cause the black smoke effects that are nice for photography, but it also scoured the soot from the tubes and restored heat transfer efficiency.
dd
Thanks dd.
Sanding the flues was a necessity for oil-burners. It may have been less necessary for coal-burners since the ash and cinders served the same function.
As best I know, the cinders take care of the problem. I’ve never heard of anyone sanding a coal burner.