What are these for?

Ken C.

I cleaned a gas-fired, hot water boiler the other day, I believe the manufacturer was United. Anyway, after I took the flue collector off, I noticed there were steel plates in between the sections. I had to remove these plates so I could brush the flues. I've never seen these plates before, but then again, I've only cleaned about a half-dozen boilers. What is the purpose or function of these plates?

Unknown

Those are \"Baffles\"

there purpose is to slow down the flue gases to get better heat transfer into the boiler sections. Otherwise all of the flue gase (products of combustion) would at a higher velocity than necessary leave the boiler and we would have all of the heat going up the flue.

Dale

Bock

Timmies correct on the baffles, if you ever clean a Bock heater you'll see a flue that has small pcs of metal welded inside to improve heat transfer, works well for that but harder to clean. If you can, try to imagine the machine that welds the little pcs of steel inside the flue.

Boilerpro_3

Weil Mclain has these too

They are just flat sheet metal vertical plates that are I believe are to reflect radiant heat back into the sections?
In this position, they wouldn't create much turbulence, I wouldn't think.

Boilerpro