Field note
What to photograph during a boiler-room visit
Nameplates first: boiler model, output, fuel, and serial. A smear of dust on the plate is common; we wipe only enough to read it and we do not remove covers.
Then the firing sequence as it stands that morning. If boiler 2 is isolated with a handwritten tag, the photograph of the tag belongs in the appendix. Seasonal reviews that ignore isolation will invent a plant that ran at full diversity.
Gauge faces come next: header pressure, loop temperatures, and the outdoor-reset chart if one is taped inside the door. We photograph the clock or a phone timestamp in the same frame when the operator says the reset “was changed last Thursday.”
Finally the log book, open to the current week. We do not take the book away. A single page photograph with permission is enough to compare later with the gas invoice.
These pictures are working notes for the report. They are not a marketing gallery, and they stay with the client’s file.