I hesitate to jump in here as my knowledge of the subject is limited to
reading, but IIRC the problem lies in the superheated water in the
container. The pressure allows the water to be heated to well above boiling
point at atmospheric pressure. When you release the pressure as in opening
the steamcleaner valve, all the water can now turn to steam very rapidly.
If your popoff valve does not have sufficient capacity to dump the excess
pressure fast enough the vessel can become overpressured and turn into a
bomb. Seems there was also a greater problem as the water level gets down,
the flash over can occure more rapidly.
Other than that I am all ready to go fire up the crab cooker and stick a
propane tank full of water on it to see how well it works
Glenn
"Ian Stirling" wrote in message
...
Grant Erwin wrote:
larry g wrote:

One of the model engineering magazines, HSM I think, had an letter from
a
boiler inspector about this very subject. He went on about pressure
vessels
and heated pressure vessels being very different. In the end it was no
way
in hell should anyone do this. I'm sorry I can't quote the article as I
have been going through a lot of the old magazines that I have just
acquired.

Hmm. Often when someone from an industry whose revenue source depends on
scarcity says "oh no you surely cannot do that" what it really means is
"oh my if everyone did that I'd be out of work". I vaguely remember the
letter, probably was HSM. I'd welcome it if anyone knows which -- since
1982
there have been over 135 issues, that's a LOT of reading.

Practically all the heated boiler/steam legislation is there because
people have regularly killed themselves with things they thought would
be fine.



you all do realize that a simple garden hose and nozzle attached to the drain
valve on your water heater is all the steam cleaning you will ever need to use.
When I hear the term superheated steam I wonder if you all are familiar with
boiler technology and uses/ makeing of dry steam. you aint gonna accomplish
that with a lil cooker and an old propane tank. you would be missing the
internal firebox featuring muliple steam generation tubes. The presureized and
regulated fuel oil header system with throttles and burner barrels. The forced
draft blowers required to move enough combustion air to the fire box to
generate a signifigant volume of steam top be more than slighjtly useful. and
last byt not least., in making superheated dry steam you need cyclone
separetors to rapidly change direction of the water vapor leaving your
firesides, thus droping any moisture out and back down to the generation tubes
to be flashed again to vapor. Complicated mess really. sperheated and dry steam
refer to the product of a 1200 lb psig dry steam d type boiler plant , like on
ship board.

of course you could just generate 150 lbs aux steam , for a degreasing wand,
with out much more danger than using a pressure cooker. Still, the garden hose
is easier, imho
MLM