As the economy opens up and people begin to travel and dine out, breweries and wineries like yours see their businesses rebound. In addition to staffing up, it’s essential to properly prepare your equipment, such as your brewery boiler, for increased production. Even though craft brewers and winemakers are getting much savvier about boilers, the best type of problem is the one that never happened. So ensure that before turning on the taps, you follow these recommendations for restarting your boiler.
Even the best breweries in the world wouldn’t be able to get anything done if they didn’t have a top-notch brewery boiler system in place.
Preventative Maintenance
First, after a prolonged period of being shut down, components may not work correctly, leading to preventable downtime, so just like you can avoid car trouble through a proper maintenance routine, most of the common boiler problems you might encounter are detectable before they become a problem or avoidable through regular maintenance. Why not schedule a preventive maintenance visit before you want equipment to be back online.
Plan Your Startup With a Checklist
Several checks must be carried out before a boiler can be started. These include the boiler itself, the feedwater system, and the fuel and draft systems. Every boiler is unique. Even when they are the same models, they are still unique from each other, so make sure you follow these steps to ensure a problem-free startup:
Our Recommended Steps For Startup
- Check that all ventilation and combustion air openings and louvers are clean and free of debris.
- Verify boiler water level.
- Check that all stack dampers are open.
- Examine the boiler furnace for foreign material.
- Make sure the manual fuel valves are open.
Before putting brewery boiler into service, perform the following:
- Complete function testing on all controls and safety devices.
- Complete combustion tuning to ensure proper emission limits are being met.
(Need further details on starting your boiler after a layup? Don’t hesitate to call us: Bay Area: 510-822-8443 or Central Valley: 209-270-5715.)
Preventative Maintenance Going Forward Ensures Optimal Uptime
To ensure you don’t have hiccups that impact production, you should follow a preventative maintenance routine. A recommended annual service includes inspection, combustion tuning, and identification of any components needing repair. For further info on boiler maintenance check out our guide RECOMMENDED PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE
A good maintenance routine will save thousands of dollars by ensuring your boiler is operating more efficiently and reducing the chances of emergency repair or unplanned downtime.
Let’s Talk
Preventative maintenance is the surest way to boiler health. Still, if your brewery boiler has been lying idle for a while, we strongly recommend getting one of our experts to run a health check before firing up.
Want to know how we can ensure a trouble-free boiler? Ask us about our exclusive boiler uptime program – designed to prevent costly downtime! You can reach our team of experts at 800-225-1348.