Information     Automated Blow-Down Cost Justification What is the most common "objective" to the purchase of an automatic boiler blow down system? Right, it costs too much! Here's a suggestion to help overcome that objection. Analyze the operation and come up with a payback figure. Take the following example:   A process boiler producing 100,000 pounds per hour of steam. The operator has been told to maintain chlorides at 18 - 22 ppm. His records show that he averages 20 ppm, which is pretty good for manual blow down. However, automatic blow down could bring the average up to 21 ppm without exceeding 22. This would reduce the blow down by 5%. (21 - 20) / 20 = .05 or 5%. Typically, 20 ppm results from 10 cycles of concentration. The blow down required to maintain 10 cycles is 10,000 lbs/hr (100,000 / 10 = 10,000). If the 10,000 lbs/hr is reduced by 5%, that's a savings of 500 lbs/hr. 500 lbs/hr at 400 BTU/lb is 200,000 BTU/hr. A gallon of oil is about 100,000 BTU, so the oil consumption will reduce by 2 gallons/hr. At a dollar a gallon, that's $2 every hour! If an automatic blow down system costs $1300, it will take 650 hours, or 27 days, to pay for the system!!! ($1300 / 2 = 650) (650 / 24 = 27). This was all based on zero condensate return. If there is 50% return, the payback period doubles in 54 days. That's still a short pay-back period.            Of course, the savings continue after the pay-back period.