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doubletop

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Maybe not our model boilers but this makes the point that a boiler is an energy storage device and if all the energy is let go at once the results can be serious. It also demonstrates that the flat sections, in this case the end plates, are the most susceptible to failure, requiring stays and through tubes to support them


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bU-I2ZiML0


and hence the need to have standards, regs and the need for testing.

(informative and entertaining at the same time)

Pete
 
I remember watching that episode - was hilarious and scary at the same time. They had to do quite a bit of work/damage to that hot water heater to get it to blow up like that. I think they weaken the metal at the bottom somewhere to get it to launch like that, in addition to removing or plugging the safety valve.

Don't try this at home boys & girls :big:
 
Hmmmmm . . . .

I wondered what the big bang was across the valley . . .

.
 
Not me recently; but came close to it in the UK. Connected up the immersion heater in a house we'd just moved into. For some reason it hadn't been wired up. We went out for the evening and came home to hot flush toilets, actually very hot everything from all the cold water outlets. As with UK practice both hot and cold water was fed from a header tank in the loft. Hot water overflow was fed back to the header tank so the water was just cycling around as it heated up, any loss being replaced by the cold feed.

The thermostat was faulty so never tripped out. Fortunately the inherent safety features of the design worked properly, otherwise it could have been nasty.

Pete
 
They took out the Watts valve and the over temp thermostat. It was running open loop...no control or safetys whatsoever. It poped at about 350 psi as I recall from the show dialog.

YUP....steam will do that.....a wonderous, terrible thing it is.

Dave
 
I shudder every time I see something like that. The average viewer does not realise the amount of tinkering and safety bypasses that is done for the effects shown. The average viewer then assumes that all steam is going to do that.
Regards,
Gerald.
 
I came home to a fried thermostat - and a steam system - the house was fed from a high level tank so no pressure reducer was installed.

The first thing we noticed was we flushed the toilet and the cystern first flowed water - then steam. It had backed up steam into the system (was probably bubbling out of the high level tank).

It was hillarious - a steam driven toilet - straight out of a Goon show - I couldn't stop laughing.

Ken
 
Ken I said:
I came home to a fried thermostat - and a steam system - the house was fed from a high level tank so no pressure reducer was installed.

The first thing we noticed was we flushed the toilet and the cystern first flowed water - then steam. It had backed up steam into the system (was probably bubbling out of the high level tank).

It was hillarious - a steam driven toilet - straight out of a Goon show - I couldn't stop laughing.

Ken

When a youth I worked at a Gas bar that had a car wash. The employees washroom was in the car wash building and the toilet ended up plumbed in the hot water line. During the day the water heater never keep up and the water was just warm, but during the night when the wash was closed you had to be careful you didn't scold yourself using the toilet.
Regards,
Gerald.
 
steamboatmodel said:
When a youth I worked at a Gas bar that had a car wash. The employees washroom was in the car wash building and the toilet ended up plumbed in the hot water line. During the day the water heater never keep up and the water was just warm, but during the night when the wash was closed you had to be careful you didn't scold yourself using the toilet.
Regards,
Gerald.
Somebody at work got an energy-saving award for asking why the water in the urinals sometimes ran hot. ::)

Turned out to be some sort of building load-balancer, but a whole lot of people were trying to figure out how he discovered that.

 
shred said:
Somebody at work got an energy-saving award for asking why the water in the urinals sometimes ran hot. ::)

Turned out to be some sort of building load-balancer, but a whole lot of people were trying to figure out how he discovered that.
The Car wash was only heated to 40 F just enough to keep things from freezing, you could see the mist from the toilet.
 

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