STEAM TRAP INSPECTION
AND REPAIR SERVICES

 

Failed steam traps waste energy and adversely affect product quality. Fluid Sealing Service (FSS) provides turn-key Steam Trap Inspection and Repair Program (STIRP) focused on increasing the efficiency of our customers steam systems. FSS identifies faulty steam traps and recommends corrective actions that net you full payback.

In most cases, full payback of our services occurs in less than 90 days.

Guaranteed Objective Recommendations: Because FSS is an independent authority not associated with any trap manufacturer, you're guaranteed an objective recommendation when replacements are required.

If your plant has never had a steam trap survey, chances are you may be losing a substantial amount of energy and energy can be as much as 35% of a facility's total operating costs.

Experts estimate that in a plant with no active steam trap testing and repair program, 50% of the traps are blowing steam. With periodic inspection and prompt repair, an effective steam trap management and repair program can reduce trap failure to as low as 3%, saving a facility as much as $500,000 per year or more depending on the size of the steam distribution system. 

Free up valuable time and resources by "outsourcing" your data input, report generation, testing and repair to Fluid Sealing Service.

Steam Trap Inspection and Repair Program. Services include:

  • Program Establishment

  • Process Review 

  • Professional Survey Technicians

  • In-Service Steam Trap Survey

  • Trap Testing

  • Data Management Software

  • Experienced Technicians To Repair Failed Traps

  • Periodic Resurveys/Testing

 

FAQ'S

TrapMax Management Software w/Palm PC

Bar Code Tags

Types Of Steam Traps

 

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should we survey our facility?
Components that are critical to your production should be surveyed every six months. 60% of our service is annual, 25% is semiannual, and 15% is quarterly. We service over 250 customers annually.
If scheduled outages are in the future you need to arrange for inspection/testing services 2 to 3 months ahead. This insures you will have time to locate hard to find failing components.

Why is it so important to test steam traps?
In the course of a day the steam trap may "open" and "close" several hundred times. In a year it may open and close 100,000 times. If it fails open live steam will blast into the condensate lines and thousands of dollars will go up the chimney. If it fails closed condensate steam (water) will flood the heating apparatus and cause havoc with the entire heating system.

What do you mean - I lose tons of money?
Well, it's sort of like trying to heat your house in the winter with some of the windows open! If you did this, your furnace would be running most of the time trying to keep up with all the heat you're losing. Steam traps are just like the windows - with one twist: When they are working they're closed to keep steam in. When the steam traps gives up its "heat" it turns back into water and, now here's the twist, the steam trap opens so this water can go back to the boiler and get turned into more steam. This cycle continues, the boiler works overtime burning expensive fuel to produce steam you shouldn't even need and you lose tons of money!

I don't leave my windows open in the winter time.
Of course you don't. You can visually see if the windows are open or closed. Steam traps are like "hidden" windows. A lot of people, including good maintenance people, don't remember to check their steam traps before winter rolls around. You know why? Because you can't tell, simply by looking at it, whether or not it works! When a pump stops working, you know it has quit working. But when a steam trap quits working, you don't know if it has quit working without ultrasonic testing!

Our utility bills aren't that high.
Well, if you have a big building and you forget to close a few windows every winter, pretty soon you have a bunch of open windows wasting all your expensive heat. But, you didn't really notice a big increase in your heating bill all of a sudden, because every winter you simply forgot to close a few more windows. Same thing happens with your steam traps, every year a few more fail and you really don't notice a big increase in your energy costs.
Now, imagine what would happen if all your steam traps operated properly.  That's right! The boiler gasps a sigh of relief and screams "hallelujah!" The utility company sends someone out to see if the meters are working right! Your energy bills fall like a rock and thousands of dollars are saved from the dump heap. You are an absolute hero for all time.

I find that kind of savings hard to believe.
I don't blame you - it seems fairly substantial - and it is. But, you have to realize that there are piles upon piles of customer testimonials and reports exclaiming one simple truth: "Steam trap repair on neglected steam traps provide the shortest payback period  for steam heat efficiency investments - often in a little as 2 months!"

So what kind of savings might I come up with?
The only accurate way to predict savings is to have a complete survey and testing done. Our survey reports will tell you: Steam Loss Through Leaks ( in dollars and pounds), Make up Water Losses, Repair Costs and many more.

I'm motivated to take action!  Where do I begin?
Well, one call to Fluid Sealing Service will put the whole process into motion.  First we want to identify where all your steam traps are located, record the appropriate trap information and assign an ID number tag (these can be bar coded) to each steam trap.
Then we ultrasonic test each trap to quickly reveal the condition of each trap. An ultrasonic test is a "positive" in that we can hear what is happening within a steam system as it is being tested.
After the survey and testing, we are able to produce a variety of reports that: identify failed traps, activity summary (financial analysis), repair report, maintenance work orders, and survey repair report by cost and maintenance package costs.
Call us today at 715-675-2344.

 

Management Data Software

TrapMax is Fluid Sealing Service's innovative steam system management software: The newest technology in palm computing has now been integrated with TrapMax2K. The trapTech Palm PC has integrated barcode scanner, touch screen/pen stylus action, drop down lists, and pop-up keyboard!!

TrapMax2K maintains ALL historical survey data regarding steam traps including ALL old surveys, master data, maintenance data, and repair data. TrapMax also tracks leaks associated with the steam trap station and calculates losses for these leaks as well as losses for make up water.

For steam losses through failed open traps, ReportMax calculates losses for each individual trap by pressure, orfice size, and percent failed open.

Features:

  • All trap information including trap number, unit, group, location, size, model, manufacturer, service, pressure, outlet, usage, survey frequency, and comments.

  • Data entry of survey information including date of survey, status, external leaks, comments, tags needed, etc.

Generation of Reports Including:

  • Survey Results Report - listing of all traps surveyed with status, leaks, and survey comments. Includes OK traps.

  • Repair Report - listing of all traps which need repairs.

  • Maintenance Work Orders - Work order printed for each trap needing repair.

  • Performance Graph - Graph showing performance of each trap manufacturer. Shows OK, Failed Open, and failed Closed traps in a bar chart for each manufacturer.

  • Tag Report - report of all traps needing tags.

  • Status Graph - bar graph of status of all traps (OK, F/O, F/C, etc.)

  • Activity Summary - (Financial Analysis) Summary of all activity by unit, group, or facility. Tracks all traps surveyed, status of those traps, steam loss through failed open traps (in dollars and pounds), steam loss through leaks (in dollars and pounds), and make up water losses (from failed open traps to the atmosphere). Trap reliability Percentage. Also tracks maintenance activity data if maintenance is performed by us.

  • Facility Model Count - listing of all trap types by manufacturer and model. An actual count of how many of each model are in the facility.

  • Survey Repair Report By Cost - this report calculates losses ($) for each trap or leak and lists each separately. (See dollar amount of loss per trap!)

  • Maintenance Package - If we perform the maintenance additional reports include Maintenance Summary, Cost Graph, and Maintenance Performed graph.

  • Other Reports available upon request!

  • Export reports to Excel format on diskette. (other formats available upon request). Pricing: .35 (thirty-five) cents per trap, minimum $250.00.

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Fluid Sealing Service has capable, trained professionals waiting to assist you with your steam trap survey data management needs and repairs.

  • Free up your staff  for more important tasks

  • Cost effective

  • Professional results

  • Accurate steam loss calculations

  • Complete reporting

 

 BAR CODE TAGS

Improve Survey Efficiency with bar code tags. These stand up to the harshest plant environments -- anodized aluminum with Teflon coating resists paint, most chemicals, sunlight(UV), solvents and heat to 500oF.
Tailored to your requirements -- all legends, barcodes and human readables feature variable print.

 

TYPES OF STEAM TRAPS

 MECHANICAL STEAM TRAPS

Mechanical steam traps work on the principle of differentiating between the density of steam and condensate. For example, in one type of mechanical trap, a float (the valve) rises with the level of the condensate to open; yet in the presence of steam only, does not become buoyant, but seats securely over the orifice to close.

Most of our mechanical traps are of the "Free Float"  type. Thermal elements have been included in those traps to allow venting of air and non-condensable gases.

 

 

THERMODYNAMIC STEAM TRAPS

Thermodynamic steam traps operate on the principle of difference between the flow of steam over a surface compared to the flow of condensate. Steam flowing over a surface creates a low pressure area, this phenomenon being used to move a valve towards the seat and eventual closure.

Our "Thermodyne" trap models are all disc-type thermodynamic steam traps.

 

THERMOSTATIC STEAM TRAPS

Thermostatic steam traps operate by sensing the temperature of condensate. As steam condenses, the condensate so formed is at steam temperature, but as it flows to the steam trap, it loses temperature. When the temperature has dropped to a specified value below the steam temperature, the thermostatic trap will open to release the condensate.

FSS installs balanced pressure (with X-element) and bimetal type thermostatic traps.