Negative building pressure and harmful effects.

Your boilers should have barometric draft controls, so as long as you have good negative flue pressure to begin with you should be OK.

Does anyone in your plant write confined space entry permits? If so, they will have a meter that reads out CO levels. Just to be on the safe side.

Can the plumbing traps be increased in height? Nice, cheap, easy solution to the stink problem. Can the room containing the traps be isolated from the room containing the steam chest mo(u)lding?

Now, what can be done to deal with the humidity problem at source? Can the wet air be ducted out of the building, instead of through it? Is there a leak that wants stopping? Is there an insulation problem that wants fixing?

Measure the CO levels. Get some data, instead of supposing it.

If all else fails, then is the time to invest in ventilation equipment.

Ohio Referenced standards.

If the air stinks, you may want to have the air quality checked

http://www.epa.state.oh.us/dapc/

Any fire department will be able to check for CO

here are some consulting services

I spent 2 years battling and eventually defeating negative air pressure in a food manufacturing facility with a MAJOR condensate issue. USDA said fix it or shut down. I had to educate each level of management all the way up to the corporate level to get anything approved.

All areas / zones in a facility need to be positive UNLESS you are in a lab that require negative pressure. Some zones need to be more positive relative to other zones. This effects may, many things. The easiest thing is to ensure all exhaust fans are interlocked to an input of greater value. ..................................................X CFM out -vs - more CFM in ..........you win

GENERALLY, most area in a plant should be positive.

HOWEVER, if dealing with flammables, noxious, or dangerous fumes, certain areas must be negative to better control IAQ (Indoor Air Quality).

Can you supply the boilers with outside air? The cost to supply make up air will be tremendous, not only in initial cost but also in heating costs down the road.

Good suggestions, and good effort oilguy, GA.

All good answers, but I am further wondering who engineered the building of the boilers in the current manner to begin with. Seems they should have been a licensed engineer, but it apparently was poorly done. Have you looked at the original calculations and prints for the installation?

The building originally had adequate louvering in the boiler room and a heated air makeup unit in the press room to balance exhaust fans in the ceiling. Over time and expansions the heated makeup unit was removed because it would have been on an inside wall. The production people raised such a fuss one hot summer that more exhaust fans were placed in the ceiling with little thought to the long range effects. This kind of stuff happens in small manufacturing operations when they are struggling to survive their customer base moving to Mexico.

In a perfect world a licensed engineer would fix all the technical problems and everyone would sit around the campfire cooking s'mores. I haven't seen that world yet. I have seen plenty of over over engineered installations that went belly up and I wonder if they could have survived with less "perfection" to amortize.

Forgive the rant, but I get a headache from hindsighters.

Some good FREE resources in OHIO and also DOE for assistance on this. Would you like a local PE resource who can assist you?

Also, a company out of Georgia, EXHAUSTO, has a very well conceived and well implemented replacement to fixed louvre combustion air for boiler rooms and related combustion equipment areas. It is linked to the equipment and utilizes Variable Air Volume, and not static louvres to give you only the air you need under 100% control and integration to the boiler.

I have no monetary link to either of these resources, but can make referrals for you..

e-mail to jrsmith@armstronginternationa.com and I will assist.

I am a Certified Energy Manager (C.E.M.) and did some consulting in the past on these areas. Glad to be of assistance (I am still living in Ohio).

All good information. Thanks for the feedback! We will have Ohio Industrial Commission do some CO monitoring when the weather cools down enough to keep all of the big doors closed. This will be for safety first until we can replace the unit heaters with the the tubular style infra red that make the most sense.

I like the suggestion from THEOILGUY55 of putting an exhaust hood with fresh air source over the steam chest area. This is better than having a big heated make up air unit sucking natural gas. This is worth a GA at the very least.

Assuming we can otherewise balance the pressure with the outside or provide a slight positive I wonder if there much of an efficiency loss ducting cold winter outside air for boiler combustion?

There is no discernable loss of BTU's by taking your combustion air from the outside.

You lose about 30 BTU per pound of air using 0ºF versus 80ºF air. Without running through a whole combustion energy balance, I would guess the efficiency loss is nearly insignificant.

A dedicated source exhaust with heat recovery wheel or heat exchanger would be a big step in balancing the pressure. Assuming typical 15 foot high mounting, the radiant heaters described are also a great idea.

The building needs a steam coil, heated by the boilers, to preheat the make up air from outside to inside. The combustion air to the boilers has to be ducted in from outside and pre heated (air heater) and local exhaust ventilation has to be implemented where the excess steam is being generated. It seemingly is complex but once all the components are in place happiness will reign.