Hospital ditches jam-prone mechanical steam traps

"They're always breaking down, need repairing and then we have to keep testing them to check they're OK." That's the complaint that David Brattey, Estate Officer at Dykebar Hospital, Paisley, hears all the time about mechanical steam traps. So for the last eighteen months he has been replacing faulty traps rather than trying to mend them.

The GEM venturi steam traps which have been brought in have no moving parts and so need minimal maintenance.

Brattey heard about GEM venturi steam traps two years ago at a local energy efficiency meeting.

He was struck at once by the low maintenance regime: no moving parts means nothing to jam, either open or shut.

And he devised a plan, using existing budgets, to replace the hospital's jam-prone mechanical steam traps one by one as they failed.

Dykebar has 50 traps on calorifiers, boilers and drip legs of the steam system; in eighteen months 12 have been switched to GEM.

"We just check the line strainers once a month, just as we do for other equipment" says Brattey, "and that's a huge relief."

GEM traps minimise steam losses, giving permanent energy savings of 12 to 55% backed by a 10-year performance guarantee.

At Dykebar the savings will be checked in due course.

For the time being, it's the maintenance regime that appeals to Brattey.

"We could benefit more by changing all 50 traps, but replacement is expensive," he comments.