We all have boilers in our homes. Our boilers, together with the furnace, serve the purpose of heating the water in our homes. That heated water is then distributed all over our homes conveniently for our use.

You may not know very much about boilers, but we all use them on a daily basis. But what about industrial boilers? There are companies that specialize in the manufacturing and service of industrial boilers. Which leads many people to wonder:

What the heck is an industrial boiler?

Really, industrial boilers are pretty much exactly what you are thinking they are: they are industrial sized boilers, similar to the ones used in our homes, but created and used for industrial purposes.

They work fairly similarly to regular household boilers. They are used to produce heat and/or power. The boiler heats water by using some form of fuel. It uses the fuel to generate heat, which is transferred through a heat exchanger called a steam generator. That heat is then passed on to the water.

These industrial boilers can be used for the purpose of heating water, or they can also be used to generate steam, which can be used for power.

Types of industrial boilers

There are a few different kinds of industrial boilers. They are all very similar, but they differ in what they use to generate their heat/power:

Hot water boilers
Hot water boilers use hot water to power them. They don’t actually boil the water that is used to power them, they heat it to around 180 – 200 degrees F.

Watertube steam boilers
With watertube steam boilers, the water is actually boiled. That boiled water produces steam, and that steam is used to power it. The water is heated to about 212 degrees F. These are great because they can handle greater pressures and temps than some other boilers. They are used very often for industrial uses because they can produce larger amounts of steam.

Firetube boilers
Firetube boilers are more common in household uses, but are also used for industrial purposes. In these boilers, they have tubes that are surrounded by water. They pass hot gases through the tubes, and the surrounding water is heated by those hot tubes. That hot water is then converted into steam.

Solid fuel boilers
These boilers use solid fuels to operate them.

Uses for industrial boilers

So, if industrial boilers are essentially industrial-grade boilers, then who uses them? Many large companies find use for industrial boilers. Places like airports, power plants, hospitals, military bases, malls, universities, etc all use industrial boilers.

Nicole writes articles for www.indeck.com, where you can buy or rent a watertube boiler. They have the world’s largest inventory of boilers available for immediate shipment.