Implementing an effective steam trap maintenance program
A failed steam trap quietly wastes steam every hour it stays in service. An organized maintenance program pays for itself in months.
What a failed trap costs
A functional steam trap in a properly designed steam tracing or drip leg application generally discharges about 30 to 50 lb of condensate per hour under normal winter operating conditions. A leaky or failed-open steam trap, on the other hand, can lose 50 to 100 lb of steam per hour, depending on trap type, flow capacity, failure mode, inlet pressure and so on.
Even at a steam loss of 50 lb per hour, with an estimated steam cost of $10.00 per 1,000 lb, each failed tracing or drip trap can easily cost about $12.00 a day. Failed high-pressure utility traps or high-capacity process traps can lose 10 to 20 times this amount of steam.
Failure rates add up
Without careful planning, a plant can easily see trap failure rates of 30–40%. With an organized steam trap maintenance program, failure rates can be brought down to 6–10% after three years.
For a mid-size refinery or large chemical complex with about 5,000 steam traps, that difference means an unnecessary steam energy loss of about $360,000 a month (assuming 20% additional failures: 1,000 traps × $12.00/day × 30 days/month). Even if a plant only runs its tracer lines from mid-October to mid-April, it is still losing close to two million dollars each year.
What a program costs
A steam trap maintenance program doesn't have to be complicated or costly. All that's initially needed is a team of two to four well-trained personnel with a few basic trap testing instruments, such as an ultrasonic tester or temperature probes. More sophisticated probes and software can make the program easier to manage, but are not critical.
A trained two-person team can test about 100 traps in an eight-hour shift, so a 5,000-trap plant needs about 1,000 labor-hours a year. At a $50.00/hr labor and overhead rate, a plant should budget about $50,000 in labor for an annual steam trap survey. Including program administration, it is still under $60,000 a year, or about $12 per trap. A new tracing or drip trap costs about $100 to $150, or about $200 to replace including labor.
Four-year cost analysis for a 5,000-trap plant
| Year | Failure ratestart of year | Annual surveylabor/admin. | Trap replacement | Total program cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30% | $60,000 | $300,000 | $360,000 |
| 2 | 20% | $60,000 | $200,000 | $260,000 |
| 3 | 15% | $60,000 | $150,000 | $210,000 |
| 4 | 10% | $60,000 | $100,000 | $160,000 |
| Four-year total cost | $990,000 | |||
Given $360,000 of unnecessary steam leakage per month, the total cost of a four-year trap maintenance program can be recovered in about three months. If your plant runs these traps year-round, or has many high-pressure or high-capacity traps, the savings could be substantially higher.
How we can help
Process Technology of Pennsylvania is dedicated to supporting your energy-saving efforts with high-quality, energy-saving thermostatic steam traps and ambient temperature sensing valves for automatic steam supply header control. We can help you implement your trap maintenance program, train your steam team, or provide a turnkey steam trap survey and maintenance program.
For more information, call us at 215-628-2222.