Boiler Operation Accreditation Scheme (BOAS)

The Boiler Operation Accreditation Scheme (BOAS) came to life following the removal of the City & Guilds accreditation.

The Combustion Engineering Association (CEA) felt there was a need for an accreditation particularly as the HSE were insistent on fully competent operators looking after the boiler house equipment. Therefore, BOAS was born in 2004 and has gone through many upgrades and changes over the years but all with a mind of making the most competent engineers possible.

The accreditation has a number of different categories and you must be certain which category suits your equipment. The categories are:

• Category 1 – Hot Water Boilers
• Category 2 – Shell Steam Boilers (sometimes referred to as firetube boilers)
• Category 3 – Water Tube Boilers
• Category 4 – IBOAS (International BOAS for those who do not need to know British regulations)
• Category 5 – Coil Steam Boilers
• Category 7 – Hot Oil Boilers

Most candidates opt for a single category, however it is possible to undertake multiple categories on site if you have the relevant equipment and indeed it is better time management and cheaper to do the categories together in 1 course if applicable. For this reason, IBHTEC has the unique ability to cater for all of your needs and requirements.

The majority of courses are delivered on your site however we do host open courses for category 2 throughout the year therefore if you have multiple people to train, or just 1, we can look after you. Our courses for a single category are held over 4 days in total which is broken down to 2.5 days of training, 0.5 days for written exams (2 for operators and 3 for managers) and the final day is set aside for the CEA to send an assessor to interview each candidate individually. If you have multiple categories the time of training is increased by at least 1 day making it a 5 day course.

All candidates must have experience running and maintaining a boiler and boiler house. The rules state they must have at least 6 months experience and 100 hours (which is thought to be around 6 months in today’s world as candidates tend to visit the boiler house occasionally rather than spending all day shovelling coal!)

The course is in-depth covering the following topics:

• Safety and Legal Regulations
• Basic Heat and Heat Transfer Concepts
• Feed Water and Boiler Water Analysis
• Combustion and Draught
• Energy Efficiency
• Environment
• Fuel and Concepts
• Boilers and Auxiliaries
• Operation
• Control and Instrumentation

All courses must have a minimum of 4 candidates for onsite courses.

IBHTEC do not just run courses and simply hope that all candidates pass. We look after candidates from the day of booking by guiding them through the paperwork and preparing them fully for the course. We ensure that they do not just pass, but learn the subject and become competent.