Locating cold spots in your heat chamber can result in large savings in fuel costs, help to reduce cycle times and have other advantages as well. After conducting more than 100 free heat chamber surveys for its clients over the past three years, Package Research Laboratory (PRL) knows the difference a survey can make to a customer.
Bob Will travels all over the country for PRL conducting heat chamber surveys. This service, also called mapping, can help a company to improve efficiency by reducing cycle time by at least 30 minutes. This allows them to run more charges per day and also reduces the fuel costs required for each cycle, Will said. It also ensures more effective eradication of evasive species, which is the whole point of heat treatment in the first place.
Although specific time and cost savings vary, they can be very significant according to Will. One company he worked with in Indiana, for example, reported a 40% cut in heating time around 50% in fuel costs, after making modifications recommended by PRL.
Most heat chambers Will inspects are run on propane, while some are also fueled by natural gas or by boilers.
PRL offers the heat chamber surveys free to all the customers in its Wood Packaging Material (WPM) Program, commented David Dixon, president of the PRL. About 75% of its customers are pallet manufacturers and recyclers, while the rest are wood packaging manufacturers who make crates, boxes and other types of packaging.
Both new pallet manufacturers and recyclers have to treat their pallets destined for export markets in order to comply with ISPM-15 pest standards. ISPM-15 requires fumigating or heating pallets a heat chamber to a minimum required temperature of 140 degrees for non-surveyed chambers, but at a lower 132.8 degrees for chambers that have been surveyed.
What does the surveying or mapping process involve? “Temperature measuring equipment is put throughout the chamber and then several cycles have to run to locate the coldest spots in chamber,” Dixon said. “And that’s where the thermocouples have to be located for all future loads.”
By simply relocating thermocouples in each zone of the chamber to the coldest spots in the chamber, the heating units can run much more efficiently, he said.
While moving thermocouples is the primary recommendation that results from the heat chamber surveys, “there have been a few times where I’ve suggested different fans or modifications to the unit,” said Will. “By doing the studies, I can find deficiencies in their airflow.”
“The whole thing with heat treating is the air flows,” Dixon added. “If locating fans in different areas will make a difference in the heating then we do recommend that.”
In addition to the free heat chamber surveys offered with its Wood Packaging Program, PRL also provides its customers a free online service that makes WPM compliance easier. The PRL Wood Tracker and Consumer Center lets clients track all their heat-treated wood purchases and products, quickly print inspection reports and calculate board footage usage, and much more.
PRL, based in Rockaway, New Jersey, is accredited by the American Lumber Standard Committee to provide nationwide auditing services under the ISPM-15 regulations.
Call PRL at 973/627-4405, email info@package-testing.com or visit www.package-testing.com for more information on how its service can help you.
