Even the cavemen used fire to keep warm in winter, cook food and scare away wild animals; heat and flames are an integral part of human survival. In today’s world, heat is applied to things for a myriad of reasons; domestic, industrial and commercial.
Choose Your Heat Source
At one time, how we made things hot was simply a question of “how hot do you want it to be?” Today, pollution and environmental questions affect our heating decisions; do we opt for:-
- Nuclear –“ if Homer Simpson can run a nuclear reactor; why can’t I have one”? The answer to that is obvious.
- Solid fuels like wood or coal; these might give “pretty” flames in your fireplace; or around a campfire; but, the heat takes a while to “get going” and there is no smoke without fire and smoke can be sooty and polluting.
- Liquid fuels like kerosene or gasoline are also somewhat polluting. They can also be difficult to use – remember those camping stoves that had to be pumped and primed before you could even think about cooking anything?
- Gaseous fuels; in particular, natural gas (or LNG) and manufactured gases like propane & butane or methane produced from waste. Most gases burn cleaner than other fuels and the heat is instant; once the gas has been mixed with air and ignited. Gas does have explosion risk and people can commit suicide by breathing it; but, the risks are easy to avoid or negate.
By and large, gas would appear to be a good choice of heating fuel and all you need in order to be able to use it is to choose Gas Burners suitable for your gas and your application.
Horses For Courses
Most Gas Burners operate on a very simple design; gas is fed into a tube or pipe and precisely mixed with atmospheric air before proceeding to a section of the pipe that has holes drilled through it; the air/gas mixture escapes through the holes and is ignited to provide a series of individual flames. If you need heat to be applied over a distance; for example to heat the outside of a tank so as to warm up the liquid inside the tank, your Gas Burners will probably be of the “pipe” type where the holes are in a straight line. For more heat in a smaller area, the Gas Burners will usually have a circular configuration to concentrate the heat; for such as heating a cooking pan.
