What is Burner Efficiency?

It is not how much the burner costs but how much the burner is worth.  In simple terms, efficiency is determined by the amount of fuel required to meet your heating needs.  Efficient burners can achieve this by using less fuel whereas cheap burners lack the quality or ability to maintain efficiency throughout the firing rate of the burner.  Key factors to consider when purchasing or structuring a boiler burner system is standardizing on digital linkage less controls.  Digital burner management systems provide extremely accurate control of the burner fuel air ratio.  The digital system eliminates the linkage which previously tied all burner functions, i.e. suction side air and fuel regulation, back to a common servo motor.  Instead, each function is directly coupled to its own dedicated stepper motor which is accurate to within 1/10^th of one degree for extreme accuracy. An addition of 02 trim and VFD options will add significantly to the ability to control the air the burner needs to burn efficiently and safely.  The more you control the air required to burn fuel (3% O2 throughout firing rate) the more efficient the burner becomes.  With these options, the burner senses change in air density and automatically adjusts fuel and air regardless of seasonal change. Air is much denser in the winter than the summer, and as a result would require less cubic feet to maintain an efficient burn.  Controlling excess air may be the single most important function of a quality burner. Quality burners should also have the ability to modulate low enough to maintain heat loads without cycling. Turn down ratio is the second most important requirement when looking for an efficient burner.  Everytime the burner cycles off (Post Purge Cycle) and restarts (Pre Purge Cycle), the air in the boiler room enters the boiler at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (average) and exits at approximately the same temperature as the boiler medium.  The difference between entering air temperature and leaving air temperature robs the boiler of heat and thus loss of efficiency.  Decreasing the number of cycles will increase the efficiency.  Reference: U.S. Department of Energy’s website for best burner practices.  www.eere.energy.gov/industry/bestpractices.