Boiler House Basement

The boiler house basement at White Bay Power Station runs underneath the boiler firing level, a concrete-floored bay holding the ash-handling system, the boiler drain plant, and the feedwater piping that fed the boilers above. Structural columns rise through the basement in regular rows. The pipework along the underside of the upper floor has mostly been removed for salvage; the smaller-gauge instrument and drain tubing remains. Ash residue sits in the corners of the bay, accumulated where the conveyor feed dropped material from the boilers above before the system was shut down. The lighting is bare bulbs on a perimeter circuit; daylight enters through floor gratings above.

The basement was the working level for the ash-handling and drain plant at White Bay across the operational decades of the station. Conveyors moved bottom ash from the boiler firing chambers to the disposal area; drain pumps cleared the lower sections of the steam circuit between operating cycles. The plant ran continuously across three build phases from 1917 to Christmas Day 1983. After closure the basement plant was wound down. Most of the larger equipment came out during the 1990s decontamination program; the structural arrangement and the smaller-gauge piping remain.