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PLANT-07B · Central plant

Boiler short-cycling

The boiler is starting and stopping more frequently than its minimum-runtime safety limit allows.

Capacity-basedBAS trendsMedium effort

What does PLANT-07B mean?

The boiler is starting and stopping more frequently than its minimum-runtime safety limit allows.

Why does it matter?

Short-cycling slashes seasonal efficiency (each start has a purge cycle that dumps heated combustion air up the stack) and accelerates heat-exchanger and ignition-control failure.

What should you do?

Check the boiler's minimum run timer, the supply-water setpoint range, and the staging logic. Oversized boilers are the most common root cause — consider modulating-burner retrofit or condensing replacement.

How Energy Agent prices a finding

Written by Pelorus Engineering · Brent Waluzak, P.E. (FL), President, Pelorus EngineeringLast updated
Estimate it

What is short cycling costing?

Estimate the energy wasted on starts, and remember the wear is the bigger bill.

Enter a repair or controls-change cost to see the simple payback.
Avoidable cost per year—Energy —Simple payback Enter a cost to fix to see the payback.

    Each start costs roughly a couple of minutes of full-load energy before the unit is doing useful work. Extra starts above a sane rate, times that penalty, times the unit size and the affected hours. Energy Agent counts the starts from status trends.

    Screening estimate. Energy Agent measures the real fault hours and load from your trends and prices them at your tariff.

    Request a demoSee how Energy Agent prices a finding

    Screening-level estimates; confirm with measurement and verification before capital commitment.

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    Send twelve months of interval data and a BAS trend export. Energy Agent returns a ranked list of what is wasting money, what each item is worth per year at your tariff, and what to do about it.

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