Steam Systems
The steam system design and maintenance is very important to the successful operation of a laundry and drycleaning plant. A badly designed or installed system can drastically influence the operating costs and quality of work produced. The steam supply should by dry saturated steam and contain no more than 2% moisture and be air free.

The boiler should be large enough to supply the maximum boiler horsepower required by all your plant equipment. If the boiler is undersize then this will cause surging which will create a higher moisture content in the steam reducing your efficiency and increasing your utility costs.

The pipework should be sized large enough to handle all the inlets to the machines and supply lines to the sub headers. All the drops to the machines should rise up off the top of the headers to reduce the amount of water carryover to the machines. All pipework should be pitched in the direction of the flow 1" for every 10' of pipe run. At the end of each header or sub header an end of line trap should be installed, this should be the only point on the steam supply line that should come off the bottom of the line.

Steam traps should be installed on each outlet from the machine, prior to the trap a strainer should be installed and after the trap a check valve should be installed. The traps are extremely important in maintaining the steam in the pressing heads, a trap which operates incorrectly will reduce the efficiency of the equipment. There are a number of ways to check a steam trap, pouring water on it is not one of these, this will only tell you that the trap is hot. The ideal way to check the trap is by using a pyrometer, this will allow you to check the temperature differential across the trap. Another method of checking the traps is by using temperature crayons which have different melting points, or by listening to the trap with a stethoscope. The latter method is not very accurate, as it will pick up all the other noises in the pipework.