Furnace

A boiler is used for conversion of chemically bound into thermal energy. The combustion chamber of the boiler is heated by a burner. Around the boiler chamber are pipelines in which a liquid, usually water, the thermal energy of the combustion takes and feeds it into the heating system.

In private households boilers are mostly housed in the basement. Where in most cases, the fuel is stored, which is necessary for operation of the respective boiler and hence the heat generation. Occasionally boilers in new buildings - to save the chimney construction costs - housed in the attic.

• 3.1 bars
• Optimus 3.2 program

Boilers by Fuel

Gas boiler

Gas boilers recover heat energy from the combustion of natural gas and transport the heat energy via the heat carrier is water. When outdated gas boilers often results in high heat losses and costs; with modern condensing boilers, energy costs can be reduced and the emissions are reduced.

Oil boiler

A diesel boiler uses the fossil fuel oil to generate heat energy by combustion. In addition to the boiler, a tank is needed for the storage of fuel.

Oil heaters lose in Germany increasingly important. Due to volatile commodity prices in the past and the often strong environmental impact oil boiler for consumers have become increasingly uninteresting.

Wood boilers or wood boiler heating

The wood boiler heating is one of the biomass boilers as fuel piece or logs used. Due to the high oil and gas prices, heating with biomass such as wood has again become an alternative for many homeowners.

Pellet boiler

Pellet boilers are among the biomass boilers as fuel pellets are commonly used in wood. Wood pellets are small pellets from sawdust and have their compression and usually lower humidity has a higher energy value than normal logs.

The operation of a pellet boiler requires a fuel storage room, but less space than would be the case when heating with firewood. The firing of the boiler using wood pellets via conveyor systems often automatically. Disadvantages see Pellet # criticism

Boilers on the purpose

Boiler, for example, be used for the following purposes:

• Steam generation, industrial steam engine
• Heat generation, heating and hot water heating for buildings
• Waste incineration

Waste of energy

For optimization of heating the entire chain of energy, from extraction finishing is often taken into account ( in a refinery ), transport, energy conversion and heat distribution, many details are included. Because but for heating, hot water production and ventilation to the manufacturer's instructions ( heat loss during operation) is resorted to in practice occurring downtime losses ( can not be known with new buildings ) are not determined and thus not determined exactly. A detection of such heat losses would be only with heat meters in the flow fittings ( heating and hot water) and comparison with gas or oil consumption meters counters possible (see also utilization ).

Clocks

In the literature and in publications different assessments of the standby losses are to be found. Depending on the data source and fuel of " well below 1% " to 40 % ( for fuel oil ) or 50% of total fuel consumption. The downtime losses are caused mostly by air flushing of the burner space before and after the burner running (to avoid explosions of fuel residues). They arise when the "Flash " ( turn off the burner, rest period with cooling, start the burner with low flame unstable and duration until the next time ). Not uncommon are values ​​of 30,000 cycles or more per year, and of course as many burners room Auskühlvorgängen. 365 days (including the hot water and Stockpiling ) are 1800 hours burner running time over 6960 hours "standby" ( = hypothermia ). The heat loss of the insulated boiler will then be for the most part " also heated to the fire ."

The timing is usually caused because the heating water (the " return " ) flows back too fast and too hot again, and then the burner - regardless of any other room thermostat shutdown - an emergency shutdown makes ( otherwise the heat generated could not be cooled off and discharged ). Once the water has cooled in the boiler ( switching time = hysteresis), the burner starts up again to immediately turn off again. The associated regular burner space - Auskühlvorgänge add up to significant heat losses. One of the most common causes of gating is explained in the article hydraulic balancing, which can be prevented with relatively little financial outlay and thus heating energy / heating costs can be saved.

In the regular measurement of flue gas losses according to the German 01 BlmSchV the exhaust gases of boilers are measured in control mode. Losses during cooling are not caught by that.

Optimus program

In the by the German Federal Environmental Foundation ( DBU) OPTIMUS program savings potential for single-and multi -family dwellings in practice have been identified. The objects studied had the following mean in unfavorable interpretation:

• Oversizing of the heat generator interpretation to about 1.8, based on the necessary building heating ( Remedy: Modulating burners )
• Performance oversize the pump of about 3 relative to the sufficient electrical capacity ( Remedy: Variable speed pumps)
• Oversized radiator standard output of about 1.7 relative to the effective room heating load ( Remedy: Hydraulic balancing ).

The countermeasures were (2003) with Aufwänden of € 2, - to € 7, - per square meter comparatively inexpensive. In this case, only the following activities were carried out:

• Preset thermostatic valves to restrict the flow (hydraulic adjustment)
• Settings of the heating circulation pumps
• Setting the heating controls ( Larger hysteresis = Longer times between disconnection and reconnection of a burner )

The success of the project improved the OPTIMUS individual heating were extrapolated to total Germany a savings 20000-28000 GWh per year (compared to the nuclear power plant Brokdorf dined in 2010, 11,360 GWh of electricity into the grid ).

Dust

Dedusting systems and flue gas scrubbers are at all major heating systems state of the art, but are also for boilers <50 kW available. According to a study on the state of the art in particle separators, the efficiency of particulate matter deposition systems would be alone with flue gas condensation but small ( in the range of 10 to 20% ). Coarse fly ash particles, however, would usually deposited.