A couple of months ago, we shared pictures of water in oil, a result of condensation.
If you missed that, you can see them here.
And this week, we were on a client’s site working on a compressor.
The scope was to change a section of the exhaust pipework which had corroded, and this is what we found:
Not only were there around 6 litres of water in the exhaust system, but it was also causing carbon build-up in the pipes blocking 25% of the bore in some places.
Once the water was drained and pipes cleared, and the engine started, some of the site team commented how the smoke was a lot clearer. A tell-tale sign that the engine had been burning off some of the water.
With this amount of water in the pipework, the operator was lucky it hadn’t gone back to the combustion chambers causing it to hydraulic, resulting in a major failure.
If the water was a known problem, a water trap could be fitted to stop it getting back into the engine.
Better than this would be to prevent the water being an issue in the first place.
Because this is a standby set, it is only run for 15 mins, once a week. This isn’t enough to burn off the condensation water. Increasing to only 30 mins should be enough.
If you are looking to prevent any on-going issues, let us know. Our engineering team love a challenge!!
Email us info@bartechmarine.com or call +44 (0)1206 673101.
