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120 Boiler Operator’s Handbook

of the two but, for the most part, operators only get to your knowledge and, hopefully, you’ll get the training
experience one or the other. There are ways to become you need.
more involved in any modernization or upgrading of Why do so many of us buy another Chevy or an-
your plant. Even if you can’t get involved you should other Ford or another whatever it is we’re driving? It’s
respond to an upgrade professionally. a matter of comfort, we’re used to that make of car and
When we were looking at a project for Power and the one we have has treated us well so we go buy an-
Combustion I tried to make time to get to the plant to other one. Occasionally someone will see another make
discuss the modifications with the operators. Usually and decide that next time I’ll buy that one because it
that visit benefited us because the operators were al- looks, seems to perform or whatever better than what
ways willing to reveal the skeletons in the closets that we have. Of course if you’re like me you would love to
might come out to bite us during the performance of the have a Corvette; it’s just that we can’t afford one. When
project. In many cases I managed to learn what wasn’t it comes to boilers there aren’t any ads on television or
working and what had been a problem so I could modi- in the paper that tell us what else is out there and that’s
fy the design to correct or eliminate those things. a problem.
It’s recent encounters of that nature with operators There are ads for boilers in trade magazines and
that convinced me this book was something that was ways of learning of other makes of boiler and burner
needed. I encountered operators totally opposed to the and you should take advantage of that. I once had the
concept of the project and for many of the wrong reasons. misfortune of winning a contract to replace an old HRT
In some cases the operators simply misunderstood and boiler with a rotary cup burner run by an operator that
in others they had a perception that was erroneous. I’ve had never seen anything else and was insistent that he
learned to treat perceptions much differently than I used get the same equipment, just new. It didn’t matter to him
to because a perception is reality to the person that has it that the old boiler was very inefficient and the burner
and in many cases I can’t confuse them with facts—be- was illegal, he knew them and that’s what he wanted.
cause they’ve made up their mind. I guess that’s the first The toughest part of that job was getting that old timer
suggestion I can come up with when you’re faced with to even look at the brochures and instruction manuals
some plant modernization or upgrades, don’t close your for modern equipment. When I finally decided to incur
mind to it and insist it’ll never work. his wrath by telling him point blank that he wasn’t go-
If you are one of those people that chooses to de- ing to get his old boiler and burner back and he had
cide it will never work, I’ll watch out for you. I have first better try learning about the new one his response was
hand experience with operators proving their point by unexpected. He shrugged his shoulders, said “okay”
what I would call sabotage. If you do decide to insist it’ll and reached for the instruction manual. That was a suc-
never work then I’m going to try to be on your side. I’ve cess story only because there was no way to satisfy his
learned through some very bad experiences that when desires.
an operator says it’ll never work, it won’t. I know that I’ve seen many a boiler plant rebuilt to look just
because the operator makes damn sure it won’t work. like it did simply because the boiler operators wanted
That operator is in the position to prove his or her pre- the same thing they had. I’ve seen antique equipment
diction. with promises of very expensive parts and service bills
I’ve also learned that a lot of engineers dismiss an installed as new. I’ve seen boilers so old and inefficient
operator’s contention and put the project in anyway, that they should have been replaced years ago fitted out
figuring the operator will learn to live with it once it’s with new burners and controls. I’ve seen more bad engi-
demonstrated that it does work. Most of the time it does neering performed because it was the will of the boiler
work, but only until the engineers and contractors leave. operators than for any other reason and, I’m ashamed to
I’m not accusing any boiler operators of anything, it’s admit, did some of it myself because there was no other
what happens because nobody bothers to spend enough alternative but walking away from the job.
time with the operators to show them it does work and Many engineers and contractors are more than
how they should operate it. willing to give the operators what they want. It’s easy
If only an operator would be honest enough to say for them to copy what’s there. It doesn’t take any imagi-
“Hey, I don’t understand it and if I don’t understand it nation and it doesn’t really require any engineering. I
I won’t be able to keep it running” instead of saying it know that millions of dollars of fuel go up the stacks of
won’t work. Try it if this situation comes up, you may plants that were expanded, supposedly modernized, or
find that you’re respected more for your honesty than upgraded with no improvement in performance all be-