Re: Taking water - questions about certain practices

I'm not an expert on this. However, the water fed to the boiler is exhausted as water vapor only, the treatment chemicals are left behind. So, added treatments to the tender would tend to accumulate in the boiler, subtracted only when the blowdown valve is opened. Some popular wisdom has it that the tubes on one large standard gauge excursion loco had to be replaced after the treatment chemicals "plated out" on the tube exterior surfaces, because the treatment chemical was added to each new tender-full. Eventually, the boiler water became "saturated" with the treatment chemical salts, and precipitation occurred.

Would it be accepted practice to sample and test the boiler water occasionally? To see if treatment chemicals are accumulating to damaging levels.

Bob of AZ