Garratt-Callahan (G-C) is an industry leader in boiler industrial water treatment solutions and we strive to maximize the efficiency and longevity of your equipment while maintaining steam quality and purity. We provide consultations, as well as equipment and chemical solutions that can help you reduce boiler system maintenance costs and energy use. We manufacture all of our products under a strict Quality Management System certified to comply with ISO 9001:2015 standards.

When you work with Garratt-Callahan you partner with a company that has maintained over a century of experience treating boiler water systems of all sizes and system types in different facilities including industrial plants, healthcare facilities, power generation stations, commercial buildings, and more.

Solving Boiler Water Treatment Problems

Regardless of the location of your facility, the water you have available for your boilers will come with its share of dissolved solids, minerals, gasses, and impurities, all of which can negatively impact the efficiency and life span of your boiler equipment. Without proper treatment to mitigate these elements, your equipment, and even employee safety, are at risk. Corrosion and scale, each in their own way, increase your energy demands and costs, as well as increasing the demand for equipment maintenance and repair. The correct boiler water treatment solution can solve these problems and reduce your environmental impact for a better outcome overall.

G-C has long provided industrial solutions for water softening and demineralization, impurity removal in municipal water, and return water that can lengthen the life of your equipment, make it more efficient, and reduce your energy and maintenance costs overall. Our feedwater equipment products, as well as our steam and condensate return line products, perform under a wide variety of system pressures and temperatures.

Corrosion and Scale Control Chemicals

Corrosion and scale are two of the biggest boiler water treatment challenges, and solving them can significantly lengthen the life of your equipment and lower your maintenance and energy costs. Our boiler feedwater treatment chemicals include oxygen scavengers that reduce oxygen corrosion. The phosphate and all-polymer-based programs correct hardness intrusions to mitigate scale for boiler internal treatment. Steam condensate treatment chemicals including neutralizing amines, filming amines, and ammonia-based corrosion inhibitors keep streamline and condensate return line corrosion to a minimum.

Boiler Water Treatment Equipment

Technologically advanced water demineralization, softening and impurity removal equipment keeps boiler makeup and condensate return at optimal levels through easy-to-use automated chemical and blowdown controls that are optimized for your water source.

Monitoring and Control

G-C boiler water chemical treatment solutions can be used in tandem with the Garratt-Callahan Digital Water Management System (WMS). G-C WMS is a mobile web-based application designed to manage your water treatment system from anywhere. This combination teams the best of G-C’s chemical treatment with G-C’s technology to ensure continuous monitoring, reliable treatment, and fast and easy-to-access reporting.

24×7 remote access to monitor and control your system supports optimal equipment efficiency. With our monitoring tools, you can, in real-time, take steps to reduce scale and corrosion within the system to cut water use and energy costs. Our controls help you monitor suspended and dissolved solids levels within the correct range for efficiency and to prevent scale and carryover. This helps you protect and extend the life cycle of your critical capital assets. Furthermore, our innovative solutions help protect the safety of your personnel by minimizing personal contact with chemicals and also improves water safety for your facilities overall.

Benefits of G-C Boiler Water Treatment

In order to help your facilities with the correct boiler water treatment solutions, G-C first provides a comprehensive system review and chemical analysis of your boiler water systems. The goal of this analysis is to find the correct solutions that will achieve these five essential benefits:

• Extend the life of your critical equipment
• Reduce maintenance downtime
• Ensure employee safety
• Maximize equipment efficiency
• Help you adhere to all regulatory requirements regarding water safety and treatment.

G-C is your integrated source for any onsite problem-solving needs for your boiler water treatment systems. We provide the correct chemical solutions to address your water source’s treatment needs. We also provide on-call resources to ensure proactive maintenance and to solve any problems or answer any urgent questions you may have.

G-C Boiler Water Treatment

Garratt-Callahan’s industrial water treatment experience started with servicing the boilers that powered the steam-locomotives of the industrial revolution. Our tradition of service continues today in facilities that use high-thermal efficient boilers to power the data-centers of the information age. Our water treatment expertise, chemical applications, equipment maintenance, and customer service are more than just 100+ years of deep field experience, it is building trusted partnerships and long-lasting relationships.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What chemicals are used for boiler water treatment?

Chemicals included in our industrial Boiler Water Treatment include oxygen scavengers that reduce the corrosion of metal components. The phosphate and all-polymer based programs correct hardness intrusions to mitigate scale for boiler internal treatment, as well as steam condensate treatment chemicals like neutralizing amines or filming ones which help your steam lines operational longer.

Garratt-Callahan offers chemistry for every aspect of Boiler Water Treatment.  Oxygen scavenging products serve to remove oxygen, mitigating corrosion of metal surfaces.  Phosphate and all-polymer based internal treatment products protect against hardness intrusions and minimize scale in a boiler.  And when it comes to steam condensate, G-C offers various amine products to preserve condensate piping. 

Why is boiler water treatment required?

Without proper boiler water treatment to mitigate offenders such as dissolved solids, minerals, gasses and other impurities in your boilers, other equipment, and even employee safety, are at risk. Corrosion and scale are just a few of the many problems that arise from untreated boiler water. Increased energy consumption is a costly result of poor water treatment.

What is the recommended pH of boiler water?

It is recommended that boiler water be kept at or above a pH of 10.5. Alkaline boiler water supports the protection of metal surfaces, while low pH water is conducive to corrosion.  pH can be controlled by cycling up natural makeup water alkalinity or by adding alkalinity-boosting chemistry as a pH buffer. 

What causes foaming in a boiler?

Foam can develop when steam bubbles form so rapidly that they arrive and collect on the surface of boiler water.  These bubbles can combine to make a foam depending on the “strength” and elasticity of the liquid film that forms the bubble wall. The properties of this film are determined by the kind and amounts of foreign substances, both dissolved and dispersed, or suspended in the liquid. It has been demonstrated that most pure liquids (lacking dissolved or suspended materials) will not foam.

Foaming can occur in a boiler when:

• dissolved solids become too concentrated 
• temperature swings in boiler water 
• alkalinity-boosting chemistry is overfed
• during periods of process contamination

The presence of foam can lead to “carry-over,” where foam is sucked out of the boiler with the outgoing steam, thus adding boiler water materials to the otherwise pure steam.  Anti-foaming agents can assist in reducing foaming and carry-over, during these periods of suboptimal boiler conditions.

What are sludge and scale?

Boiler sludge happens when suspended materials settle on or stick to hot boiler tubes, drums or other surfaces, creating deposits that can foul the equipment. Boiler scales on the other hand, are harder and more solid deposits that form on boiler surfaces and cause similar problems. The biggest problem is high energy consumption because sludge and scale can block heat transfer.

Boiler scale forms when minerals fail to be removed from the feedwater, corrosion products redeposit in the system, or when sludge is not properly discharged from a boiler.  A small amount of sludge is created from naturally occurring material in boiler water, but otherwise, there are treatment products that intentionally create sludge when in contact with minerals (preventing them from becoming scale).