The OTHER Free Heat
Shy of installing a solar heating system, you’re always going to be paying for heat, right? There has to be some input of fuel or energy to get heat out on-demand. Or can it be done another way? Generating Heat We make heat using more than just a furnace or a boiler. Nearly everything in your facility generates some amount of heat. Some equipment will produce hundreds or thousands of BTUs of heat, and you actually pay to throw that heat away. This is equipment that generates heat as a side effect of running and will probably be damaged if it gets too hot. Consider for example, a large pump motor. This motor outputs enough torque to crush Sales Guy Scott’s jeep (don’t worry, we won’t be proving that Scott, even if it would look really cool). The thing is a gigantic space heater. There’s friction inside of it from the bearings heating up, there’s a massive amount of heat coming from the windings as we cram amps into them to make these monstrosity spin. The motor casing has fins on it to dissipate the heat. In some installations, it may be necessary to ensure the room has good air flow or even air conditioning to help manage the heat or risk the motor overheating. You’re paying to both generate and counteract that heat generation. This sort of waste happens everywhere. It happens in manufacturing, chemical processing, and especially in […]