Sep 20, 2026 · 31 min · 6 segments
Andy shares his experience with boiler maintenance, subcontracting, and the importance of professional startup for complex HVAC systems. We explore the value of expert involvement, detailed design…
Eric AuneHost
Andy MickelsonHost
You had a job recently that you did a great big boiler change out on, right? Yeah, actually just a burner change.
State boiler inspector came in, did their springtime internal inspection and said, whoa, you guys got a problem.
Figure that out and basically gave him a, you know, a, you know, we're not shutting you down, but you don't get to run anymore until you get that sorted out.
And what the issue was, is the internal, the combustion chamber had a bunch of soot in it.
And he had seen that through the inspection window during his inspection and was like, hey.
pull the burner out you know because normally in our area we do it's like a three-year cycle like every third year they want to see the internal combustion chamber every year they're doing internal waterways and then
yeah these are big yeah this is a three and a half million btu steam boiler okay
pretty big girl Um, and, uh, so anyway, I got called in as a subcontractor for the HVAC contractor that does the, uh, preventative maintenance on the building and they don't do anything with the steam boiler.
This is kind of a weird deal because nobody really does any steam boiler maintenance.
And he does, you know, breaks apart the unions and takes low water cutoffs apart and stuff for the inspection.
He was, he and I worked together at the previous shop that I worked at and He called and says, hey, do you want to do you want in on this? You know, can you help us out, figure out this burner issue? I'm like, yep, I can I can at least point us in the right direction.
You had a job recently that you did a great big boiler change out on, right? Yeah, actually just a burner change.
State boiler inspector came in, did their springtime internal inspection and said, whoa, you guys got a problem.
Figure that out and basically gave him a, you know, a, you know, we're not shutting you down, but you don't get to run anymore until you get that sorted out.
And what the issue was, is the internal, the combustion chamber had a bunch of soot in it.
And he had seen that through the inspection window during his inspection and was like, hey.
pull the burner out you know because normally in our area we do it's like a three-year cycle like every third year they want to see the internal combustion chamber every year they're doing internal waterways and then
yeah these are big yeah this is a three and a half million btu steam boiler okay
pretty big girl Um, and, uh, so anyway, I got called in as a subcontractor for the HVAC contractor that does the, uh, preventative maintenance on the building and they don't do anything with the steam boiler.
This is kind of a weird deal because nobody really does any steam boiler maintenance.
And he does, you know, breaks apart the unions and takes low water cutoffs apart and stuff for the inspection.
He was, he and I worked together at the previous shop that I worked at and He called and says, hey, do you want to do you want in on this? You know, can you help us out, figure out this burner issue? I'm like, yep, I can I can at least point us in the right direction.
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