How to Prepare for Steam-Boiler Inspection.
1. Haul fires and all ashes from furnaces and ash pits.
2. If time will permit, allow boiler and settings to cool gradually until there is no steam pressure, then allow water to run out of boilers. It is best that steam pressure should not exceed ten pounds if used to blow water out.
3. Inside of boiler should be washed and dried through manholes and handholes by hose service and wiping.
4. Keep safety-valves and gauge-cocks open.
5. Take off manhole and handhole plates as soon as possible after steam is out of boiler, that boiler may cool inside sufficiently for examination; also keep all doors shut about boilers and settings, except the furnace and ash-pit doors. Keep dampers open in pipes and chimneys.
6. Have all ashes removed from under boilers, and fire surfaces of shell and heads swept clean.
7. Have spare packing ready for use on manhole and handhole plates, if the old packing is made useless in taking off or is burned. The boiler attendant is to take off and replace these plates.
8. Keep all windows and doors to boiler room open, after fires are hauled, so that boilers and settings may cool as quickly as possible.
9. Particular attention is called to Rule 5, respecting doors—which should be open and which closed—also arrangement of damper. The importance of cooling the inside of the boiler by removal of manhole and handhole plates at the same time the outside is cooling, is in equalizing the process of contraction.