Burner Tuning

Numerous checks can be made to ensure a combustion system is operating safely and at peak efficiency. Some of these points include:

• Inspect burners, regulators and control valves for wear or damage. In addition to mechanical devices, burners to wear and degrade.
• Periodically inspect burner internals for accumulated dirt and debris, wear, soot, excessive oxidation or warping. Pay particular attention to gas nozzles, mixing plates and other bluff bodies.
• Provide clean combustion air.  Maintain air filters and review combustion air sources to ensure they are fresh and free of contaminates.
• While regular visual flame inspections may detect changes in operation, correctly setting burner gas and airflow cannot accurately be performed by flame color, shape or size.  Proper testing and proper tuning require proper measurements.
• Understand that burners and systems interact. Correct settings on both are important to verifying proper burner operation. When possible, burner measurements and adjustments should be performed under normal operating conditions.
• Measure fuel and combustion air pressures and create a monthly log of readings. Historic measurements can indicate trends and aid in future diagnostics.
• Regular flue gas readings can be an early detection of changes in burner systems, allowing for adjustments before operations drift too far from optimal.  Well-tuned combustion systems tend to have stable oxygen and flue gas constituents. A newly detected variation could indicate a burner setting or system condition has recently changed.
• Burner air / fuel ratios are important.  Air and fuel adjustments should be worked in tandem, from known starting points.  Blindly adding fuel in an attempt create more heat from a rich flame will not work and could be detrimental.

Hire an expert to evaluate your system and assist with your needs.