Common Issues in Baghouse Maintenance

Timely maintenance ideas for optimal baghouse operation and maintenance

A high-quality baghouse is crucial to your operation, for both the safety of your employees and your business. Failures can expose your business to risks of shutdowns, regulatory penalties and more. When IVI teams are on-site commissioning a new industrial baghouse, we train your team to spot and address maintenance issues from day one. Alternatively, IVI can manage these maintenance issues for you as part of an ongoing maintenance plan.

Maintenance issue #1: Moisture

Monitoring moisture is the top maintenance priority to ensure your baghouse dust collection system remains fully operational. Moisture can enter an industrial baghouse in a variety of ways. Structural compromises such as holes or faulty seals are one example. Another occurs when a production process contains higher moisture or oil, which leads to sticky dust. When moisture enters a baghouse environment, it can quickly wreak havoc. High moisture and moderate heat can cause hydrolysis, a chemical breakdown causing holes in bags, that lead to operational issues. Additionally, moisture and wet dust may affix to and blind off the filters, negatively impacting filter life and reducing the efficiency of the system.

Maintenance issue #2: Dust concentration

When a visible emissions plume comes out of a stack or dust is visible in the clean air section of the collector, maintenance must focus on finding the cause of this baghouse failure. This is especially true for applications involving readily oxidizable dust, where a baghouse’s fabric filter may pose a fire or explosion hazard when a spark or flame is introduced. Baghouse failure can occur when the wrong fabric or surface treatment is present in a baghouse. Alternatively, it may result from poor bag installation and seals, leaks in a tubesheet, holes in a bag, failing diaphragms or solenoids. Maintenance must focus on identifying and addressing the root cause of the dust leak to prevent more severe issues from occurring.

Maintenance issue #3: Shortened bag life

Dust collection efficiency and ease of both operation and maintenance are common reasons air quality engineers choose baghouses for industrial ventilation. For baghouse filter cleaning, you can use an on-demand system that only cleans when directed, or an automatic system that operates on a regular timer. In both cases, compressed air is used to remove dust from the collector for disposal, ensuring fabric filters continue to operate efficiently. When fabric filter life is shortened, maintenance issues may be the culprit. In this scenario, check bag installation to ensure proper fit and seal and inspect pressure gauges, timers, valves and solenoids for failures.

Again, it is important to choose the correct installation at the start, and then monitor for changes in your production and environment. Abrasiveness, acidity or moisture levels of the dust you are collecting may influence filter lifespan. Following installation, IVI engineers will train your team to identify performance issues and replace filters. Alternatively, use this dust collector bag replacement tutorial as a guide.

Maintenance issue #4: Erosion

If the dust you collect has abrasive characteristics, eventually it will do what abrasives do: eat holes in your baghouse equipment and create additional dust from inside the system. Erosion is a particular challenge in mining facilities and other manufacturing that use precious metals, frac sand, iron ore, lime and similar materials. Dust from these materials can damage the collectors, but you may notice it first in your ductwork. At IVI, our team designs, fabricates and installs durable, long-lasting dust collectors and material handling equipment specifically to address this issue.

Baghouse Operation and Maintenance Guidelines

While your baghouse is custom built for your facility, a standard maintenance approach may help you identify common maintenance issues affecting baghouse operation. Your construction team will have specific recommendations for your baghouse:

Common Baghouse Inspection Activities

Make IVI Your Baghouse Maintenance Team

IVI baghouses are custom built for your facility from top-of-the-line materials, using state-of-the-art technologies. To request a quote on a new project, or to schedule on-site baghouse maintenance, troubleshooting or repair, complete the form below.

Sources:

Fabric Filter Pulse Jet Cleaned Type (Baghouses), Air Pollution Control Technology Fact Sheet, US Environmental Protection Agency, accessed on October 24, 2024.

Best Practices for Bag Leak Detection Systems in Clean Air Act Permitting, US Environmental Protection Agenda, October 2023, accessed on October 24, 2024.

eCFR :: 40 CFR 63.1657 — Monitoring requirements., Code of Federal Regulations, National Archives, October 23, 2024, accessed on October 24, 2024.