It is important to maintain your steam traps correctly. The consequences of faulty steam traps cannot be ignored.

• Safety: Water hammer can cause serious damage to your equipment & people!
• Manufacturing Process efficiency: Maintaining correct temperatures in your process
• Preservation of condensate return lines: Water in pipes will cause rusting
• Cost reduction: It is not uncommon to have partial leaking traps costing you in excess of $10,000/year on just wasting energy consumption

Steam traps can either be defined as continuous (or modulating continuous) flow and “on-off” (hold-discharge-hold) types.

UE Systems’ Ultraprobe series helps an inspector readily identify the trap operation in all types of environments.

Inspectors can choose from simple analog instruments to sophisticated digital instruments with on-board non-contact infrared thermometers, sound analysis and data logging features. UE Systems unique frequency tuning feature enables users to literally tune into the trap sound and clearly identify leaking or blowing traps.

Inspection methods vary depending on the type of steam trap. Therefore the primary rule is to know the details of your system. Ultrasonic steam trap inspection is considered a “positive” test in that an operator can instantly identify sound quality and intensity differentials and thereby determine operating condition accurately.

Next to steam traps, a similar type of inspection is performed on on/off valves either in steam, gas filled or hydraulic systems.

To determine whether a valve is leaking in closed condition, simply listen to the valve and determine if there is turbulent flow. For low level leak detection or in loud environments we use the ABCD method to confirm your diagnoses.