Fireside problems include soot, ash, refractory damage and acid corrosion where flue gas cools below its dew point. Waterside problems include scale, sludge and oxygen pitting. Annual inspections open both sides: rear doors and breeching for the fireside, handholes and manways for the waterside. A rising stack temperature points to fouling on one side or the other.
Fireside looks good, tubes are clean, but wait till you see the waterside, there's an inch of mud in the bottom.
Also heard as
- fire side
- gas side
Related terms
Sooted up
Coated with soot on the fire side, from rich or poor combustion, so heat transfer and draft suffer.
Scale
A hard mineral crust that forms on boiler heat transfer surfaces from calcium, magnesium and silica in the water.
Punch the tubes
To clean soot from firetube boiler tubes by running a brush on a long rod through each one.
Lay-up
Protecting an idle boiler from internal corrosion during an outage or the off season.