Suppose you’ve got a dirty sight glass. Furthermore, it’s located halfway up the side of a 200 ft. tower. You’ve basically got three choices if you are a normal, sane human being. Two choices if you’re certifiably insane.
For the sane:
- Clean it in place with a sight glass cleaner
- Replace each sight glass component in place
- Remove it to a shop (using a crane and crew, obviously).
For the insane gambler
- Attempt to remove the glass without a crane or crew, lowering it to the ground with ropes and pulleys.
- Ignore the dirty sight glass and fake the repair order. (This really happens).
We avoid giving advice to the insane. However, for those tasked to do this job, it is much wiser to clean it with a sight glass cleaner while in place. When doing so, the costs of crane and crew have been eliminated. Replacing glasses and gaskets with new ones requires torque wrenches and other specialized tools. But if you choose to clean the glass, you’re gonna save a bundle – like 90% of the cost of replacement. That’s exactly right, save 90% of sight glass replacement costs by cleaning.
Now for the sight glass lottery. This technique works only for those sight glasses with full port gate valves with drains and vents. Not every sight glass gives you this option. Another option (if you have not won the sight-glass lottery) is dismantling the uppermost section and then using cleaning solution and sight glass brushes to clean the lower sections of the glass in-place.
In either case, you will need a sight glass cleaner to do the job right. We even recommend the best sight glass cleaning solution—one that will clean anything off a sight glass. This stuff is environmentally friendly, but it will still take the bark off a tree. Some cleaners can damage the mica shields, so don’t use anything except the one we recommend.
