Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Boilers. How do they work??

The water boiler is one of those things that  you don’t really notice until it stops working and everybody starts panicking , kind of like the internet.

But how does a water boiler work?

Well, first let’s see, what exactly is a boiler. A boiler is basically a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated.

 The fuel used is  wood, coal, oil, natural gas or electricity.

Hot water boilers are available as small portable units and large units used to heat buildings and for industrial use. Water boilers are expensive to install. The advantages of water boilers are that they last longer and give fewer problems than other types of heating systems.

The pressure vessel in a boiler is usually made of steel.

Cast iron may be used for the heating vessel of domestic water heaters. Although such heaters are usually termed \"boilers\" in some countries, their purpose is usually to produce hot water, not steam, and so they run at low pressure and try to avoid actual boiling. The brittleness of cast iron makes it impractical for high pressure steam boilers.

Those are the kind of boilers we see and use for our everyday comfort in our households

The components that make up a water boiler are the thermostat to regulate the heat, the gas valve, a pressure gauge to monitor the water pressure, a water feed valve, a pressure-reducing valve, an air vent to draw out unwanted air, an expansion tank to allow water to expand when heated, a flow control valve that regulates the flow of water, a pressure relief valve, a circulator (an electric pump that helps to circulate the water) and a drain valve.

There are two basic types of hot water boilers: the fire tube and water tube. The main difference is that in a fire tube hot gases go through the interior of the tube and heat water while in the water tube, heat is applied around the exterior of the water container.

There are four hot water boiler systems. The closed system reuses 100 percent of the water that evaporates after heating. The evaporated water cools and is heated again in the boiler. The open system heats water, but the evaporated water isn\'t reused. The single-pipe system uses two pipes. One pipe takes the hot water to the area that requires heating; the other pipe brings back the cool water to the boiler with the help of an electric pump. Older hot water boilers use a gravity system by which water is transported after heating through gravity. They don\'t use circulators.

The fuel is supplied to the pressurized tank of a boiler. The temperature of the fuel is regulated by the thermostat. The water is mixed with a controlled amount of air in the pressurized tank. This causes the fuel to burn. The burning fuel is sent through a pipe to the cylinder where water is stored. The fire is applied to the water and starts heating the water. The hot water is pumped by a circulator through another pipe to the areas of the building that require the heat.

Hot water heaters work by using radiant heat to warm your home. The boiler heats the water by boiling it and then sends it out to the rest of the house via pipes, transferring the heat to radiators that emit the warmth.

One thing you must always remember when dealing with a boiler is maintenance. A water boiler requires regular maintenance. If the boiler bursts because of poor maintenance, it could cause in fires or explosions. You don’t have to finish an engineering school in order to own a boiler,  but it is safe and responsible to have an expert check your heater periodically.

 

 


Tags: plumbers solihull, plumbers birmingham, gas engineers

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