I finally looked up the real failure rate on old boiler tubes

Been in this trade 12 years and always heard guys say a tube that looks good is probably fine. But last week I actually pulled up a report from the National Board of Boiler Inspectors from 2022. It said nearly 30% of tube failures happen in tubes that passed a visual inspection just 6 months before. That number floored me. I had two tubes on a job in Gary, Indiana last fall that I almost left alone because they looked clean. Is anyone else actually checking the data on this stuff or just sticking with the old rules of thumb?

2 comments

2 Comments

wade_young8617d agoTop Commenter

And that 30% is probably conservative too since a lot of places don't report failures properly. I've seen shops where they just slap a patch on and call it good without ever documenting anything.

reese_lane2916d ago

Slap a patch on and call it good" is exactly right. The real problem nobody talks about is the lack of standardization in how failures get reported across different states or even counties. Some places have strict rules, others basically let shops self-report and we all know how that goes.