Is Your Boiler Maintenance Strategy Proactive or Reactive?
Embracing a proactive strategy can pay serious dividends.
The consequences of a boiler problem at your business can be quite severe. Yet many boiler owners are still content to take a reactive approach to boiler maintenance, rather than a proactive one. In a way, this is almost like inviting a problem.
Reactive Maintenance
Reactive maintenance is the practice of waiting for something to go wrong with the boiler, and then fixing it. While in some ways this is the simplest strategy—as it requires no planning or monitoring—it is by no means the most effective. Taking a reactive approach to boiler maintenance can be quite costly to the business in terms of boiler downtime, parts & labor costs for repairs, and reduced service life for the boiler.
Proactive Maintenance
Proactive maintenance involves keeping careful watch over the boiler equipment in order to anticipate and correct problems before they have a chance to cause a shutdown or severely impact the performance or service life of the equipment.
The foundation of a strong proactive boiler maintenance plan is data. Here are some of the key pieces of data that you might want to have your boiler operator collect on a daily basis:
- Water level
- Operating pressure & temperature
- Feedwater pressure & temperature
- Oil pressure & temperature
- Condensate temperature
- Flue gas temperature
- Fuel consumption
By looking at the data over the course of a week or a month, it is possible to identify changes and trends that could indicate a need for service. This means you don’t have to wait until the system actually has a serious problem to get service or deal with all the delays and inconveniences associated with such a problem.
Routine professional inspections & maintenance visits are another important part of a proactive boiler maintenance strategy. At The Stanley Louis Company, we offer convenient planned maintenance services including 3 professional visits per year for this very purpose.
Need Boiler Repair? Call The Stanley Louis Company
Regardless of which boiler maintenance strategy you are currently using, when it comes time to make a repair be sure you get service from the experts at The Stanley Louis Company. Our company has been serving local businesses since 1981 with fast, fairly priced repairs that will help support the efficiency, reliability, and longevity of your boiler. We work on all makes and models of boilers and we are even available 24/7 to handle emergency boiler repair needs.
