Spent 4 hours chasing a tiny leak on a boiler tube header

Got called in last month to a plant outside Pittsburgh where a boiler was losing pressure but we could not find a single wet spot. Checked every weld and fitting for hours with soapy water and nothing. Turned out it was a pinhole crack in the tube header right where it met the drum, only showed up when we brought it up to 150 psi. Has anyone else had a leak that just would not show itself until you cranked the pressure way up?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric_ramirez6711d ago

Bet your ass Ive seen this exact thing. Worked a job in Ohio where we chased a ghost leak for two days straight on a high pressure loop. Soapy water at 100 psi showed nothing, vacuum test was clean, even did ultrasonic and got nothing. Plant manager was about to tear the whole system apart. Finally I said screw it and had them bring the loop up to 200 psi past operating pressure and bam, a tiny pinhole on a return line in the corner of the ceiling started whistling like a tea kettle. Those microcracks only open up when the metal stretches from the heat and pressure. You gotta think of it like a balloon, small holes stay shut until the material is under enough tension. Most guys just do a standard pressure test and call it done but you really need to push it past normal limits if theres any doubt.

sage_lewis1010d ago

Honestly I hear stories like this all the time and I gotta wonder how many of those "ghost leaks" are just guys not being patient enough with the basic tests. You had the loop at 100 psi for a while and it held clean, that already tells me the system is probably fine for normal use. Pushing it to 200 psi past operating just sounds like you're begging for a real failure somewhere else that was never designed for that pressure.