SCA Hygiene achieves new valves payback three times over in six months

The Prudhoe, Northumberland-based firm's practice is to only carry out maintenance work on a live steam system behind double block and bleed isolation and frequently suffered minor problems with blocked level gauge glasses on its boilers. However, because only single isolation valves were fitted to the gauge glasses, the boiler had to be shut down and depressurised to enable maintenance engineers to fix the problem safely, halving production output for up to 10 hours. SCA Hygiene engineering leader Neil Carroll said: "We replaced the existing single isolation valves with four SafeBloc valves on each of our boilers, so that any future maintenance work on our gauge levels can be done without having to shut down a boiler, enabling us to maintain production. Previously a boiler shutdown could cost us up to £20,000 in production downtime. The last four valves paid for themselves three times over within the first six months." The patented design of the new Spirax SafeBloc double block and bleed valves incorporate two isolation valves and a bleed port in a compact assembly, making it easy to install into the space left by an existing single isolation valve.