Unless valve safety train components are listed as “ventless,” vent lines are necessary. Simply installing vent piping is often insufficient. Vent lines must be correctly engineered, installed, and routed to appropriate and approved locations to be effective. Even when vent lines are properly installed, building pressures can vary sufficiently that may prevent optimal burner performance. Vent pipes have also been known to fill with spiders, bees and other nesting insects. Once plugged, the pipes will impede the escape of gasses, leading to a potentially combustible gas build-up inside the facility.

Vent lines must be correctly engineered, installed, and routed to appropriate locations. In addition, building penetrations must be sealed, pipes must be supported, and the vent terminations must be protected from the elements and insects.

Even when vent lines are properly installed, building pressures can vary sufficiently enough that they prevent optimal burner performance. Building pressures often vary with seasonal, daily weather, and manufacturing needs, further complicating matters. Condensate in vent lines can collect and drain to low points or into the devices themselves. Heating, cooling and building exhausters are known to influence building pressures and device responses, but so can opening and closing of delivery doors for shipping and receiving. Hence a burner once tuned for optimal operation might not be appropriately tuned for the opposite season’s operation.