Deep Water Blue Safeguards Critical Boiler with vSteam
Hertfordshire, UK – July 2026 – At VPK Packaging’s corrugated packaging plant in Wellington, Somerset, a single horizontal three‑pass fire‑tube boiler supplies steam to a high‑volume corrugator that runs 24 hours a day, five days a week, with additional weekend production during busy periods.
Steam is used to heat preheaters, corrugating rolls, steam showers and starch mixers, so any loss of steam would halt production and undermine VPK Packaging’s ability to serve South Wales, the South West and the South of England from this strategically located hub. As VPK Packaging’s Corrugator Engineer Gregory Pow explains: “Uptime is everything on a corrugator, so the boiler simply has to keep running.”
From catastrophic boiler failure to renewed confidence
Before Deep Water Blue’s involvement, VPK Packaging’s first boiler at its Wellington site suffered repeated tube issues and ultimately catastrophic failure traced to caustic embrittlement. Despite apparently acceptable monthly results from a previous water treatment supplier, daily checks sat with corrugator operators who recorded data inconsistently, masking episodes where pH drifted outside the safe range.
Non‑destructive testing in year five revealed catastrophic failures of the plant including extensive cracking around the burner tube and tube plates, leaving the boiler beyond economic repair and forcing VPK Packaging to rely on a hire boiler for approximately nine months while a permanent replacement was installed.
Deep Water Blue enters as steam specialist
When VPK Packaging invested in the new fire‑tube boiler, the business deliberately sought a specialist in steam boiler water treatment rather than a generalist water company. VPK Packaging put Gregory through BOAS training, while also engaging with Deep Water Blue’s water treatment specialists who subsequently visited the Wellington site to assess the boiler house, condensate recovery system and broader compliance landscape.
Gregory explains that Deep Water Blue’s deep involvement in UK boiler guidance through the Combustion Engineering Association gave VPK Packaging confidence that the programme would reflect BG01 expectations and UK‑specific legislation rather than generic European standards.
Commenting for Deep Water Blue, water treatment specialist George Nixon explains: “We focus on steam plant from the ground up, which allows us to design chemistry, testing and digital oversight around each boiler’s risk profile and duty, not around a generic template.”
Transforming daily boiler care with vSteam
Deep Water Blue replaced the old single‑pot amine treatment with a three-component dosing programme to suit the steam boiler and condensate recovery system, and secure reliable sulphite delivery.
Gregory and his team now complete a comprehensive and disciplined daily water treatment testing routine, as well as visual checks, blowdowns and evaporation tests. All results are entered into Deep Water Blue’s vSteam digital management platform, where the VPK team records every test, chemical adjustment and operational note.
“I particularly value the ability to review ten‑day trends at a glance, check that auto‑blowdown aligns with manual TDS readings and spot issues such as falling sulphite well before they threaten asset integrity.” says Gregory, who goes on to say that, during weekend downtime, the team uses weekday data in vSteam to fine‑tune pump settings so the boiler holds protective sulphite levels in unattended periods without wasting chemical.
George Nixon comments: “We designed vSteam to make detailed boiler testing feel manageable, giving engineers instant visibility of trends and the context behind every reading so that small deviations never snowball into big failures.”
Taming a highly efficient condensate system
VPK Packaging’s condensate recovery system introduced both an opportunity and a challenge. Large volumes of clean condensate return to the boiler thanks to the installed Baviera system, significantly reducing make‑up water demand to roughly 20 cubic metres per week on a seven‑day firing schedule, but also diluting oxygen scavenger and other conditioning chemicals. Working closely with Deep Water Blue, VPK Packaging installed an additional dosage point for the oxygen scavenger tied to the condensate recovery system’s pump speed, so dosing automatically tracks condensate flow and maintains protection even as production rates change.
This collaborative troubleshooting contrasts sharply with Gregory’s experience of previous providers, where apparently acceptable snapshot readings masked underlying instability. He believes that the partnership with Deep Water Blue, the condensate recovery system manufacturer and steam boiler OEM has given the wider VPK Packaging fresh insight into condensate systems at other sites with similar configurations.
Visible improvements in reliability, leaks and chemical use
Since adopting Deep Water Blue’s programme and vSteam platform, VPK Packaging’s Wellington facility has experienced a striking shift in reliability. In the six years since the replacement boiler was installed, the only significant issue has been a manufacturing‑related weld defect on the feedwater inlet, unrelated to water treatment and resolved by rewelding a tube. Gregory reports no tube failures at all on the current boiler, describing the difference compared with the original unit as “night and day.”
The benefits reach far beyond the boiler shell. Historically, VPK Packaging’s Wellington site wrestled with frequent gasket failures and steam leaks around preheaters, often repairing a leak every four to six weeks.
“Since partnering with Deep Water Blue, those leaks have almost disappeared,” says Gregory, now struggling to recall the last time he had to tackle a steam leak and estimating intervals of three to four months or more between incidents.
Chemical consumption has also stabilised at what Gregory considers a modest level, with Deep Water Blue adjusting sulphite set‑points to provide a buffer over unattended weekends while keeping pump outputs low.
According to George Nixon, Deep Water Blue aims to tune each boiler so that protection is robust without being wasteful, which is why they see sites like VPK Packaging’s Wellington facility ordering chemical less frequently even as they increase the depth and frequency of their testing.
Supporting compliance and changing attitudes to water treatment
The combination of BOAS‑trained on‑site personnel, Deep Water Blue’s water treatment specialists and the vSteam audit trail has transformed how VPK Packaging views boiler compliance and risk.
As Gregory explains: “Many industrial sites still underestimate water treatment, only discovering its importance when everything has stopped, it is all going wrong and regulators arrive to investigate. My experience of a five‑year-old boiler failing through caustic embrittlement has made me acutely aware that cutting corners on treatment or switching to cheaper suppliers can carry a far higher long‑term cost.”
Gregory now openly challenges any suggestion of moving away from Deep Water Blue. “Once you develop the trust that we have with Deep Water Blue, it is very hard to trust anyone else.” he says, highlighting the extensive phone support, shared documentation and joint problem‑solving with Deep Water Blue’s team, especially during the early years with the new boiler.
He also stresses that: “Given variations in local water quality, plant design and duty, water treatment and boiler care must remain site specific rather than being standardised across sites or even countries.”
As George Nixon summarises: “Deep Water Blue’s role at VPK Packaging’s Wellington site is to protect a single, critical boiler that underpins a strategically important corrugated plant, using detailed chemistry, disciplined testing and vSteam oversight to turn a painful past failure into a stable, confident future.”
About Deep Water Blue
Deep Water Blue specialises in innovative water treatment solutions for critical industrial applications. The company’s expertise encompasses steam generation, boiler water treatment, and advanced chemical technologies designed to optimise operational efficiency whilst minimising environmental impact.
For technical enquiries:
George Nixon, Deep Water Blue Ltd
Tel: 0870 460 2980 | Email: [email protected] | Web: www.deepwaterblue.co.uk
For media enquiries:
Simon Cantillion, Cantillion King
Tel: 01453 755551 | Email: [email protected] | Web: www.cka.co.uk
