The laundry at Leighton Hospital, Crewe has cut maintenance and downtime by replacing mechanical steam-traps, with venturi types, produced by Gardner Energy Management (GEM).
At peak times the laundry has a steam load of 6000kg/hour and, after just one year, mechanical traps fitted to the Setra ironer began to show casting failure.
They were replaced with GEM venturi traps which have no moving parts. Within the trap, steam is held back by high-density condensate, which is continually drained back to the boiler. This hot condensate passes through the opening and down the venturi to a lower pressure, and as it does so, some of the condensate flashes off, exerting a back pressure and giving the trap dynamic performance over varying loads.
The hospital has seen significant reductions in steam losses and in machine downtime. Two years on and the traps have never failed and have needed only minimal maintenance.
