Blowdown Heat Exchangers

When designing a new boiler room or making changes to an existing one, one small but pertinent aspect of this is coming up with the appropriate blowdown design percentage for both surface blowdown and bottom blowdown. What is a good rule of thumb to be used as the minimum amount of blowdown to design around? How much is too much? This Madden Manufacturing article will walk through these providing guidance to the questions and explaining why you need to be blowing down your boiler(s) in the first place.

When developing a P & ID and/or floor plan for a boiler room installation, horizontal floor space is usually given a lot of thought and attention. Vertically designed boiler equipment allows for more efficient spacing in your boiler room and is also much easier to incorporate later on if  a piece of equipment is being added to a preexisting boiler room.

Madden Manufacturing’s HV series heat recovery systems are designed to operate with a small footprint. The unit itself stands on a 24” X 24” pad and other than where you choose to install the inlet manifold, the rest of the unit is does not take up much more than 2 square feet the whole way up.

B.T.U stands for British thermal unit and is commonly defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. Other than safety measures, BTU’s are arguably the most important factor to spend time and energy on when it comes to your boiler process. In the boiler room, B.T.U’s are their own form of currency. It takes a lot of energy to produce heat to boil water and to keep it boiling. The more efficient the boiler operator can be, the less energy, heat, and fuel are needed to produce steam.

Most boiler applications run 24/7/365. The energy to produce heat can come from natural gas, electric, or coal, among other sources and processes. So the smallest amount of B.T.U’s you can save will add up to big savings to your fiscal year’s bottom line.

If you ever seen our HV boiler blowdown heat recovery unit and thought, “how in the world will we service the valve if it’s on the inside?” then take 3 minutes to watch our how to video.

This walkthrough will show you how quickly you can service the float valve inside of the unit via the 6” x 8” hand hole. Allowing for minimal down time before you are back up and running, and saving money.

Want in on a secret? Madden had its highest sales years during the recession. Why? We’re not entirely sure, but one definite part of it was the rise in fuel prices. Everyone with a boiler system wanted to save money and be more efficient in their operations. Madden heat recovery systems usually pay for themselves in a matter of months and so these units became quite popular.

We’re writing this blog as a reminder of the obvious, that a heat recovery system still works on boilers burning cheaper fuel, and buying a heat recovery system will still result in savings; it just may be a couple more months before it pays itself off.