Tried to save a day on a 2008 boiler in Cincinnati by skipping the full tube inspection.

The front section looked fine, but a small leak in the back row of tubes cost me a full re-tube job and about $4,200 in extra labor and parts. It was a hard lesson about cutting corners on old equipment. Anyone have a good checklist for pre-job inspections on vintage units?

3 comments

3 Comments

karen_wells23d ago

Check the back rows first, they always go first. Learned that after a similar mess with a 2007 unit. Make a rule to pull the rear tube shields every single time.

martin.vera21h ago

Seems like a lot of extra work for a simple check. Most of the time you can spot the bad ones just by looking.

hugom4023d ago

Yeah, and honestly it's not just about the back rows. @karen_wells is right about those shields, but the bigger miss is not checking the water quality history first. If the place has had bad feed water for years, those tubes are toast no matter where they are. A quick chat with the building manager about their maintenance logs can save you from a surprise. That old scale buildup weakens everything, so a visual check alone won't show the whole story. Skipping that talk is what really gets you.