Mechanical and Utility Engineering
Pressure Equipment and Vessels
Boiler Operation, Maintenance and Water Treatment Technology
Running a boiler safely and efficiently, where the water treatment decides how long the plant lasts.
- Duration
- 5 days
- Contact hours
- 30
- Level
- Intermediate
- Fee from
- On enquiry
Overview
A boiler fails through its water long before it fails through its firing. Scale from hardness, corrosion from dissolved oxygen, caustic attack under deposits and carryover from poor steam separation all originate in treatment and show up as tube failures, efficiency loss and contaminated steam. The firing side has its own discipline, and the safety side is not negotiable. This week covers all three, with water treatment given the weight it actually deserves rather than treated as a chemistry appendix.
Who should attend
Boiler operators and shift engineers, utilities and maintenance engineers, water treatment and laboratory staff, and HSE staff with responsibility for steam plant.
What you will be able to do
- Explain how feedwater quality determines boiler life, with the mechanisms named.
- Set and control a treatment regime, and interpret the test results.
- Operate the firing side for efficiency without losing combustion safety.
- Carry out the statutory and routine safety checks, and know what each proves.
- Diagnose carryover, scale and corrosion failures to their cause.
How it is taught
Short input, then work, across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each. Exercises run on situations delegates bring rather than on a case study written for a different organisation. Cohorts are capped so that everybody is asked something.
Available as classroom, live online, in house.
Programme outline
Day 1
The boiler and its circuit
- Firetube and watertube, and the duty each suits
- The steam and condensate circuit as one system
- Feedwater, deaeration and make up
- Blowdown, and what it is actually controlling
Day 2
Water treatment
- Hardness, scale, and the heat transfer it destroys
- Dissolved oxygen, corrosion and oxygen scavenging
- Alkalinity, caustic attack and deposit related failure
- Testing, dosing control, and reading a trend
Day 3
Combustion and efficiency
- Excess air, and the loss on either side of optimum
- Flue gas temperature, and what it indicates
- Burner condition, turndown and cycling losses
- Heat recovery, and where it is worth the capital
Day 4
Safety
- Level control, and the devices that must be independent
- Safety valves, testing and the proof it gives
- Burner management, flame failure and purge
- Statutory inspection, and preparing for it
Day 5
Failures and troubleshooting
- Carryover, foaming and steam contamination
- Tube failure, read for its mechanism
- Condensate return contamination
- Layup, both wet and dry, and the corrosion it prevents
What you leave with
- A water treatment and testing regime for the delegate's own boiler.
- An efficiency assessment identifying the two largest losses.
- A safety check routine mapped to what each check actually verifies.
Dates and fees
| Dates | Location | Format | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 to 27 November 2026 | Maseru, Lesotho | Classroom | R15,000 |
| 30 November 2026 to 4 December 2026 | Cairo, Egypt | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 7 to 11 December 2026 | Nairobi, Kenya | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 14 to 18 December 2026 | Dar es Salaam, Tanzania | Classroom | US$1,500 |
Fees are per delegate and cover tuition, all programme materials and the certificate. Travel, accommodation and visas are arranged by the delegate. Registration closes two weeks before a programme starts.
Certificate
A GATI certificate recording what was attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended. Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record.
It records participation. and GATI does not claim one it does not hold.