Water Removal Procedure

From Hot Oil Systems

Water in Your System No system we've seen has been entirely free of water. The more complex your system is the more water is usually present in it and the more difficult it is remove. One proven method is to locate all your system low point drains and follow the below procedure: 1. Shut the system down allow the heat transfer fluid to drop down in temperature to work with safely. Usually, 150F / 66C or lower is a safe temperature but follow your work procedure if your company has them. 2. Allow the system to sit over night. Since water is heavier than oil, the water will fall to all the low points in the system. 3. Open each drain valve and drain a small quantity of fluid into a beaker. If you see a phase separation (one liquid floating on top of another), keep draining until you draw pure heat transfer fluid. 4. Jog the pump, bringing "new" fluid to each low point (allow enough time for the water to work its way down to the low point). Drain some more fluid and look for phase separation. 5. Continue the sampling and jogging procedure until no phase separation is observed. 6. Add new heat transfer fluid to system to insure there is enough for safe operation. Boil Out the remaining water Any remaining water can be "steamed off" by running the system at about 225F with the expansion tank warm-up valves open. This will allow hot oil to circulate through the expansion tank and steam off any water that might be in there. If you have a nitrogen blanket on your system, turn it off and open the vent to allow the steam to be vented from the system. Make sure that the vent line points into a drum or tank to insure safe steaming off of the water and insure that no one gets hurt in the process. Once the vent system stops "steaming," close one of the legs to the expansion tank (reconnect and turn on the nitrogen blanket, if you have one) and now you can take your system back operating temperature safely.

Note: Although "hydro" testing is a commonly accepted practice with heat transfer systems, we ask that you consider alternatives such as pressure-testing with an inert gas or with the heat transfer fluid itself. Water in a system can cause pump cavitations and corrosion and, if trapped in a "dead leg" and hit by high-temperature oil, can flash to steam and literally blow the pipe or tubing apart. And if the pipe doesn't burst, the expansion can push a slug of hot oil out the expansion tank's vent - a serious safety hazard.

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