I had a pants-shitting level event at work this morning...Archived Message
Posted by haighter on May 22, 2025, 13:34:20
I got in around 7 and started the morning routine of starting our Junipero Gin distillation. I prep the botanicals, charge the still, get the boiler and condenser up and running and send steam over to the still.
About 10 minutes later I get the industrial EEEEEEEEENT!!! EEEEEEEEENT!! EEEEEEEEENT!! alarm from the boiler.
This is a "run don't walk" type of situation. At this point in time I'm not sure if the boiler is over pressure or over temp, but I slam on the emergency stop and start looking over everything. My coworker walks in about 10 minutes later and he and I go over the entire setup procedure together and everything seems right. We refire the boiler and everything seems to be running fine now.
We've been down for a few days due to schedule and events and best we can guess is that we had a vapor lock somewhere between the hot water pump and the boiler and starved the boiler of water, causing it to overheat and throw the boiler alarm.
HFS though...nothing wakes you up like that alarm. I already hate boilers to start with as if anything at work is going to kill me, it's going to be that thing...but damn. I'm still a little on edge.