Common Combustion System Design Mistakes

Too Much Input

A furnace has too much input when the burners it contains are too powerful, or if there are too many of them, for the job that it is expected to do. Now, most customers would notice right away that they are producing way too much heat for their application, and this is a problem from the standpoint of the end product as well as when taking the long view. It might seem logical to simply reduce the fire from one or all of the burners in the system but this will lead to a couple of negative impacts. First, leaving a few burners on the high-fire setting while turning the others down will compromise system uniformity. The material being heated will suffer through pockets of air that vary in temperature. But if they are all turned down, the efficiency of the system will decrease, since most burners are designed for maximum efficiency at their high-fire settings, which means that you'll be spending even more to feed the machine to maintain a lower temperature than you were when it was too hot. The most logical solution then is to prevent this scenario from becoming your reality, and opting for a system that is built from the ground up to fit your exact needs.

Not convinced? Think about the cost of your system, and what percentage of that cost is attributed to each burner. Bigger, more powerful burners naturally cost more than smaller ones. If you've paid for burners that outmatch your needs, then you've already started losing money, and it won't stop there. Bigger burners also gobble-up a lot more fuel, which will soon start eating away at your profits. And once you've decided to stick with the furnace as-is, you'll be stuck with the turn-down problem mentioned above. Without spending even more money, you won't be able to get the turn-down you want, since you'll have to find a way to cool the furnace without wasting more fuel, usually through the introduction of fans or excess air.

So there you have it. Overheating your furnace, using too much input, is a serious problem that will effect your finances as well as your products, and even shorten the life of your furnace and its components. That's why, at Thermal Products & Solutions, we triple-check our math while still sitting at the drafting table, because the only post-installation phone calls we want to receive are the ones from satisfied customers, looking to make use of our services once again.