Steam Boiler -- Should it be left on all the time?

[gitchegumee]

Been brewing every day for 11 years on a used boiler. Millions of liters. No issues. I'm not about to leave the boiler run continuously for some supposed problems with expansion/contraction. Small boilers are designed to be turned on and off. Don't think that it's a real issue.

[Jim Lieb]

I was talking to the boiler people when they installed a new boiler at our location. They reccommended not turning it on and off everyday, Doing this causes expansion and contraction of the boiler, which leads to leaking.

[gitchegumee]

Turn it off. Even when brewing every day. Brewing a batch of beer should only require 3-4 hours of heat or less anyways. No reason to run continuously, IMO.

[MiuraAmerica]

The reason for the idea of leaving the boiler on all the time is to prevent corrosion within the boiler. When you leave the boiler off, it is not circulating the treated water that has the necessary chemicals to counter oxidation. Many boiler systems will either preheat the water or inject an oxygen scavenger to reduce the oxidation to the boiler metals in contact with the water. The reasoning behind leaving it on all the time in an idle or low fire state is to keep the water hot, which also reduces the oxygen in the water. While ON, it would also be circulating the needed chemicals to protect the boiler inside.

The truth is leaving your boiler ON all the time is expensive. Especially when you factor in the cost of rising gas cost. I don't know how many hours a day you are running your boiler, but they make low water content steam boilers that are able to go into standby, or be off from a gas/combustion perspective, but be ON connected to power and alive to the system saving gas. Depending on how long you leave your system OFF determines what kind of layup procedure you should take. The trick is to spend the money on the proper water treatment and chemicals because that will do the best to protect your investment. Then you can turn the boiler off when not needed to conserve fuel and runtime and the inside will be protected by the chemicals and deoxidizing procedure.

[bk256]

Looks like we are going to need to replace our steam boiler. I've had several conversations with several "experts" and get varying advise. My question is, do breweries leave their steam boiler on all the time, even when not heating HLT, Brewering, etc. Do you get longer life out of a boiler by leaving it on all the time? Do people have their boilers setup to run at a lower temperature (hot but not boiling) during off hours. I've heard both sides and trying to understand what can be done to get longer life out of steam boiler.