Cash for Clunkers vs. Cash for Burners
The government’s popular “Cash for Clunkers” program has come and gone, but the concept sparked a realization around our office recently – trading in an old, fuel-guzzling vehicle is actually less cost effective than a new commercial or industrial burner upgrade! ETTER President Tom Etter ran the numbers, and here’s what he found:
For a driver that puts 12,000 miles per year on their vehicle, a $3,500 to $4,500 rebate on the purchase of a new vehicle getting between four and ten miles per gallon better than the consumer’s trade-in, with gas in the U.S. at an average of $2.75 per gallon means it will be five to six years before the government sees a return on their investment. An investment, remember, that was made with taxpayer dollars (that’s you and I!). With the life of an average car at just over six years, this really isn’t that great an investment.
The math on a new burner upgrade looks like this: replacing a typical 5 MM Btu/hr burner that runs 16 hours a day with a new unit that is five to seven percent more efficient yields savings of over $16,000 per year (annual operating costs, at $10 per Deca-therm, goes from $230,400 per year to $207,360 per year). A burner upgrade will only cost about $8,000, which means the investment will pay itself off within five to six months, not years! The average life of a burner is well over 10 years, so the savings over the lifetime of the unit are not only tangible but significant as well.
Further costs savings, on the order of another six to ten percent, can be realized by upgrading old fashioned controls with new linkageless controls. Adding active exhaust control or LEL monitoring, reducing system fuel requirements by over 20% by minimizing latent heat losses going out of your stack.
No matter how you look at it, you’re better off keeping the clunker in your driveway and upgrading your burner(s) this fall!
To learn more about how ETTER can save you money on a burner upgrade, call us today at 1-800-444-1962 or send an email to info@etterengineering.com today!
Tags: Cash for Burners, Cash for Clunkers, Energy Efficiency, industrial burners, Rebates