Powerhouse - Open Feedwater Preparation Area on Ground Floor
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As one exits the switchgear area, one enters a large, open room. This room contains some boiler feedwater treatment machinery, an office, a door leading to a chemical storage/mixing room, and a hallway which leads to a large loading door and to a washroom.
Walking from the switchgear out into the open space / water treatment area.
Two strange cylinders that we think have to do with softening and otherwise preparing feedwater for the boilers (it has now been confirmed by someone who works in the "forest products" industry, that these cylinders are indeed pieces of demineralizing equipment). If boiler feedwater is not treated properly, it reduces the life of the boiler considerably (due to corrosion, scaling, etc..), reduces efficiency, increases the need for maintenance, and can lead to dangerous situations by causing temperature and pressure sensors and automatic shutoff devices to malfunction.
On the other side of the room from those very tall cylinders, there are these other tanks with lots of piping attached to them. They look rather cool, but I don't have any idea what they were used for. |
Some wise people decided to take bags of chemicals (caustic soda, and something else that I can't remember) from an adjoining room and break them open and strew them about the room. They also acquired a bunch of those circular chart-recorder papers, probably from one of the nearby offices, and have strewn them all over, too. What geniuses.
The bottom of one of those large cylinders.
The bottom of the other large cylinder.
Here are some stacked up bags of chemicals in the chemical mixing room adjacent to the main (water treatment) room. Some of the bags contain caustic soda (sodium hydroxide), and others contain some other chemical, the identity of which currently eludes me. According to someone in the industry, caustic soda is used in pulp mills to help break down the wood fiber into paper pulp. To the best of my knowledge, however, this mill did not have an on-site pulp mill, although it did have a recycling facility, so I am not exactly sure precisely what the caustic soda was used for.
There are two vats in the chemical room which look like they may have been used to store or perhaps mix chemicals. This one is labelled, "Lime Soda Ash."
This is the other vat; it is labelled "Sodium Phosphate."
The hatch on the top of this chemical tank was easy to open, so here is a view of the tank's contents.
Backtracking to the main room, we find this office which is in ruins thanks to vandals.
A close-up of a chart recorder paper that has been unthinkingly cast upon the floor.
Here's the breakroom or washroom. It's pretty much a mess.
And it contains a very strange sink. I have been informed that on this type of sink, the water comes out of the faucet head up at the top, in all directions, so that it can be used by many people at the same time. I bet this comes in handy at break/quitting times. C. Demaine adds that the object thrown into the sink is an electrical disconnect, and that "Boy, you don't just see that every day. Thankfully.," to which I concur :).
As we head back into the main room, we get ready to proceed up the stairs to the turbine room.