Gas Burner Flame

Servicewiz_3

I will be asked to look at a gas burner on a large( I think CB200) gas burner next week. The flame appears orange-ish. My first instict is to perform a combustion analysis on the burner to determine how far off my goal of 6% O2 it actually is.This way I would know if I should add or take away gas or air. Any help in this matter is greatly appreciated!!

Jamie Hall

Your first instinct is correct. Indeed, I would venture to say that that is the only way to adjust it!

If the flame is truly orangish, I would look for a dust source in the combustion air. Orange is from sodium, and sodium is in almost any dust you can think of. On the other hand, if it's yellow, then that suggests unburned carbon -- which suggests, but does not prove -- and air/fuel ratio or mixing problem.

ratio

Another source of orange flames (as oppose to yellow) is an ultrasonic humidifier, see for instance this thread.

EBEBRATT-Ed

I have seen orange gas flames that tested fine. Use the instruments and trust them. Also check Co

The Steam Whisperer

What Ed said. I was once called out to see if we could reduce the heating costs for a 5 story building heated with a 15 to 20 year old steam boiler. The burner flame had been adjusted to a nice blue flame. When I checked it the CO, it pegged the meter in a split second and the excess air was around 500%. Once I adjusted the excess air, the flame had some orange but was burning nice and clean. It even sounded better.

Steamhead

The Steam Whisperer said:

What Ed said. I was once called out to see if we could reduce the heating costs for a 5 story building heated with a 15 to 20 year old steam boiler. The burner flame had been adjusted to a nice blue flame. When I checked it the CO, it pegged the meter in a split second and the excess air was around 500%. Once I adjusted the excess air, the flame had some orange but was burning nice and clean. It even sounded better.

THIS!!

retiredguy

When I was still servicing power burners I found that every burner had it's own slightly different flame pattern and flame color. If you have worked on a particular burner brand, model and size, you could set up the combustion fairly close by eye and sound but to be exact and to make sure that you are correct you need a good combustion analyzer and know how to use it. Doing a good job on everything is an "art" and when you read the posts of the guys on this site and view their pictures you see that many of them are artists. my 2 cents

SlamDunk

I have three Powerflame C-Max burners that came off the assembly line sequentially (e.i. S/N1,2,3) in boilers that also came from the manufacturer sequentially. They are identical triplets. They look the same but have their own personalities. They are controlled with autoflame controllers that allow you to tune combustion using 20 points along the firing range. None of them have the same curve.

Even if I loaded the curve from one boiler burning well, onto a thumb drive and installed it in the next boiler, the combustion analysis would be very different.

EBEBRATT-Ed

@SlamDunk I was a Power Flame rep for 10 years. This was years ago long before the C-Max.

But you right no two boilers or burner fire exactly the same even if they are identical. Different draft, too many variables that are slightly different

SlamDunk

@EBEBRATT-Ed The C-Max was a bear with the linkage system and FGR. The servo controls tamed it nicely.