Need to Know: Big Pump Recovery Boiler Cleaning

The term “recovery boiler cleaning” doesn’t mean very much to people outside the industry. In fact, the average person thinks of boilers themselves as antiquated home heating systems, rather than the essential industrial equipment that they are in so much different manufacturing, power generation, and other plants. But for our clients in those industries, a company that can accomplish recovery boiler cleaning safely, quickly, and completely is a company worth having a long-term close relationship with!

That’s why we at Thompson Industrial Services have been an important partner for plants around the United States, and particularly in the Southeast, for over three decades.

Here’s what you need to know about our recovery boiler cleaning services, powered in large part by our “Big Pump” technology. 

1. What’s a Big Pump? 
2. Advantages of Automation for Boiler Cleaning
3. A Recent Success Story 
4. Power of Customization 

What’s a Big Pump? 

Our big pump equipment is the true power behind our ability to service our clients with unprecedented boiler cleaning. Each of these units, carried on its own tractor-trailer bed, is capable of pumping up to 1,200 gallons of water per minute, with a pressure of up to 10,000 PSI.

As you can imagine, these pumps are more than adequate to clean the average recovery boiler incredibly quickly, and in fact, our specialized division cleans an average of one boiler every six days. In addition to traditional, relatively straightforward jobs, though, our division is also eminently qualified to work with boilers that present extremely difficult challenges.

Our team has cleaned boilers in nearly inaccessible locations, surrounded by environments that could not be contaminated with solid waste or water generated during the cleaning process, all well within the client’s time frame and budget.  

Advantages of Automation for Boiler Cleaning

Our company-wide focus on developing automated solutions definitely has a fundamental impact on our recovery boiler cleaning services. Perhaps the most important change is the ability for our boiler cleaning team to perform many jobs without even taking the client’s equipment offline.

Our advanced robotic positioners, controlled from a safe distance by highly trained technicians, can safely enter environments where it would be impossible to place a human with handheld hydroblasting equipment.

This creates the potential to remove scale and debris from the interior of vessels while they are online, which in turn slashes an enormous amount of production downtime for the client. This, of course, represents financial savings on a level that most clients have rarely seen in the area of equipment maintenance. 

A Recent Success Story 

Recently, our recovery boiler cleaning team had the opportunity to try to “wow” a new client. There was an unusual amount of pressure for the team with this particular project, as the process was a trial run of sorts. For 10 years, managers within the company had suggested using “big pump” technology to perform boiler cleaning, but the plant had never taken the step of trying it out until now.

Our team went above and beyond the expectations that the client had for them, reducing the downtime needed for the maintenance project by half compared with past cleanings. The client was also very happy with the increased safety of the Thompson Industrial Services automated systems, which kept human technicians out of the boiler itself.

We are proud to have fulfilled this client’s expectations for this important service, and we look forward to continuing to develop a strong, long-lasting relationship with the client in the coming years. 

Power of Customization 

One critical factor that allows us to go into each client project, however unusual or challenging, with confidence that we can get the job done safely and efficiently is our incredibly high level of customization.

Our teams plan out each cleaning job in great detail, adapting the equipment used with our big pump units to perfectly match the needs of each client’s recovery boiler, vessel, or other unit. This customization potential is the reason that our services extend equally well into rubber, pulp & paper, pharmaceutical, food product, and other manufacturing applications.

Get in touch with us to talk with our industry experts about how our hydroblasting, chemical cleaning, and other services can take your downtime and outages to the next level of efficiency.

About Thompson Industrial

Thompson Industrial specializes in safe, quality Lifecycle Industrial Cleaning Service Solutions. From critical path pre-commissioning & dependable on-site operations support, to productive outages, turnarounds, and decommissioning.

As part of the Hydroblast Vacuum + Big Pump branch, we offer Automated Hydroblasting, Wet + Dry Vacuuming, High Volume Big Pump, Vaccum Excavation and UHP Cutting + Hydrolazing.  When it comes to Chemical Cleaning and FINFOAM^® we are the experts.  

We also offer Specialty + Custom Solutions, including Pigging/Brushing, Combustible Dust Remediation, Dry Ice Blasting, Drone Inspections, In-Situ SCR Catalyst Cleaning, Tank Cleaning + Vapor Control, Sponge Blasting and EPIC™ HRSG Off-line Cleaning.